Could you be an entrepreneurial leader and not be socially responsible? Not likely. That was one of the major themes of an event held recently in Vancouver. The Centre for Entrepreneurial Leaders, Trinity Western University held its 4th Annual Entrepreneur Forum on October 29th at the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre.
The annual event focuses on entrepreneurial leadership and attracted a sell-out crowd of 500 people across a wide range of business, including the high tech sector. The event is believed to be the largest of its kind in the world, drawing attendees from throughout Canada, the US and Europe.
The vision of the CEL is “to empower entrepreneurial leaders for global impact.” The focus is on using entrepreneurial skills in a non-profit context, not only to have an impact in their businesses and in society, but also in charitable organizations.
The crowd feedback was that the program, speakers and networking was excellent. Kris Krug of Raincity Studios noted: “It was great to connect with such a bright group of entrepreneurs at the Entrepreneur Forum. I saw lots of old friends from TWU who are up to interesting technology business ventures and projects. I also met a couple companies I'm interested in working with.” TWU grad and principal of Burnkit Creative, Josh Dunford, was sharing table space with Krug.
Prior to the keynote speaker Peter Heslam, director of Transforming Business, a research centre at the University of Cambridge, talked about the importance of enterprise solutions to poverty in third world countries. He highlighted the notion that funds are only one part of the capital required for success in developing countries. In addition, there must be the active contribution of social, moral and reputational capital. This requires the involvement of individuals who will implement social responsibility, whether motivated by faith or other reasons.
The keynote speaker was Larry Farrell, of Farrell International, a company that has likely taught more people about entrepreneurship than any other in the world. Larry, based in Staunton, VI, spoke about the essentials of entrepreneurship: sense of mission; customer/product focus, high-speed innovation and self-inspired behaviour. One of his key examples is the storied career of Steve Jobs of Apple.
Shelley Kuipers, President, Cambrian House noted, “The keynote again reminded me of the basic entrepreneurial instinct and key guiding principles that we must retain, in good times and bad times - keep it simple, don't over complicate your business, high-tech included. I also believe that this is the time when we can create amazing opportunities for our ventures and us as entrepreneurs.”
One of the sponsors of the event was Domain 7 Solutions, a growing web development firm in Abbotsford. Fluevog Shoes was a contributor to the silent auction.
One of the major sponsors was MakeGood Technologies. MakeGood allows businesses to effectively convey social responsibility to the market and to build their business. Doug van Spronsen, Interactive Technology Analyst, noted, “Excitement over the product was high, as people loved the branding and concept.” Many of the entrepreneurs had heard about social responsibility, and most were actively practicing it, however few were actually communicating it to their customers.
The Forum continues to gather momentum, having more than doubled in size over the past four years. As one attendee said, the CEL “has targeted the right niche—the desire for people to understand and to be inspired by entrepreneurial leadership.” And social responsibility is one key component of entrepreneurial leadership.
(NOTE: By way of disclosure, I am the Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Leader and the founder of MakeGood.)
MakeGood enables companies to communicate their social responsibility effectively to their customers. Through the MakeGood website, companies are... [more]
Bill Clinton made another visit to Vancouver, this time on October 17th to address the Business Council of British Columbia's one-day conference on corporate responsibility. He was also in Vancouver last November when hosted by the Vancouver Board of Trade.
Clinton’s stock in trade these days is social responsibility. The world has changed and Clinton is at the front of it, and applying his star power to gather corporate titans to the cause. There is “corporate social responsibility” and now there is “presidential social responsibility.” He didn’t start it—but he is elevating it.
Whether some may suspect his motives, and presumably there are many diehard Republicans in his backyard who do, Clinton is mobilizing much money and manpower to socially responsible causes.
And, in today’s environment, he is using the web to aid his cause. Clinton focuses on three key issues facing humanity. First, there is “persistent inequality” resulting from the lack of a globalized social compact. The gap between the rich and the poor has widened considerably in the last few decades and those better off are generally content with the arrangement.
Second, there is the concept of “unsustainability.” Newly and rapidly developing countries such as China cannot pursue the same policies in their economic development as did Western countries previously without catastrophic consequences for the environment. Why? There is global warming. There is also a depletion of natural resources. In addition, there is rapid population growth; the world population is estimated at 9 billion people by 2050.
A third issue is “identity crisis.” There are ongoing disputes among ethnic groups which results in terrorism, ethnic clashes. The most famous of these is the seemingly intractable Israel-Palestine festering.
Clinton’s call is to focus on our “common humanity.” How will this change? Clinton suggests that it requires three things: good economy; good government and a civil society that encourages individual involvement.
Clinton suggests that giving needs to be part of 21st Century citizenship. Further, he argues that giving should be part of the curriculum in schools and universities.
Clinton’s conclusion is that people should support giving efforts in whichever way you can and they should change the way they make money—try to do it with sustainability and still make money at the same time.
But long before social responsibility became a popular phrase, another ex-President, Jimmy Carter, was working in the trenches. Carter had what is regarded as one of the worst presidencies (he can thank George W. Bush for taking the mantle, though), followed by one of the most successful post-presidencies. He was been waging a one-man crusade against human rights abuses, unfair elections and eradicatable diseases.
I heard Carter address the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship last March in Oxford. His presentation was one of the most moving presentations many in the room had ever heard as he presented from heart, in his genuinely humble manner, the various causes he had been involved in. The depth of character and the life-long convictions which motivated his actions made his talk riveting.
There are diseases that exist in Africa, but not anywhere else in the world, simply because people in Africa don’t have the money to cure themselves. Carter set out to eradicate those diseases, such as the River Worm Disease. He is getting more frail with age, but he will clearly keep giving until his last breath.
In the end, both Presidents have taken “corporate social responsibility” and turned it into “Presidential Social Responsibility.” For today’s crowd, Carter was out of office as of 28 years ago; Clinton is for another week the most recent previous president. Carter showed the clout and value of an post-Presidency; Clinton has added his star power to take it to the next level.
Web 2.0 is the future of communicating social responsibility. Not everyone knows it yet, and only a few are practicing it, but Web 2.0 will revolutionize how social responsibility is practiced.
The International Association of Business Communicators Conference in Vancouver on communicating Social Responsibility, held on October 16th – 17th, hinted at the potential of Web 2.0.
The interest in social responsibility continues to increase even in today’s environment—it is part of the landscape regardless of economic gyrations. What is social responsibility? It is defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as: the “responsibility of an organization for the impact of its decisions and activities on society and the environment through transparent and ethical behaviour.”
James Hoggan, President of PR firm, Hoggan Associates noted that the environment became the #1 issue in late 2005 and still remains important today. One of his initiatives was to set up www.Desmogblog.com. DeSmogBlog exists to clear the PR pollution that is clouding the science on climate change.
Hoggan’s view is that an overwhelming majority of the world’s climate scientists agree that the globe is warming - the world's climate is changing - and that the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels is to blame. According to the site, “We know that the risks are incalculable and, increasingly, we understand that the solutions are affordable.” Hoggan wants to get that message to the public.
Robert Safrata, CEO, Novex Couriers, aspires to be the greenest courier company in the world (they offer Vancouver-area same day courier). He wants his company to be an engine for change—and at the same time be a profitable business. His triple bottom line focus is people, planet and profits.
His website is largely an open book. His business plan is online (just short of showing his EBITDA). Part of his open disclosure is the use of “See-it” “a real time sustainability reporting system.” All of Novex’s stakeholders can see their environmental initiatives online; this has replaced the traditional sustainability report
William George of PR firm Edelman Canada, noted that consumers want to do good through their spending. People are mobilizing to say good things about companies; in the past they got together only to complain.
George pointed out how the online environment changes how people form decisions. The Globe & Mail is useful as a way to keep up to date for some one who has already formed a view. However, if a person is doing research and hasn’t form a view yet, then they are more likely to go online.
Further, people give direct sources more credibility. A blog can become a powerful way to create a peer or direct relationship, much more so than reading a newspaper article. A blog facilitates interaction.
Of course, not all companies are paying attention to conversations going on in the online environment. Companies may struggle with giving up control when they open up an online conversation, but it is necessary to create trust. This concept was explained masterfully in The Clue Train Manifesto a number of years ago.
William Azaroff, Director, Online Banking & Engagement, Vancity, spoke about corporate social responsibility as a key differentiator for companies. We are moving to “the social age.” People want to do good and be connected.
One of their initiatives is www.changeeverything.ca. They originally thought of a Facebook page, but couldn’t figure out how to add value in that environment so they went with their own site. This site has garnered much traffic and attention and has had an overall positive return for Vancity.
Azaroff noted the challenges of getting a presence online. People today have “profile fatigue,” so it is hard to get them plugged into yet another site. In addition, the site has to truly get the public involved. A key point is to ensure that people who are commenting are not part of the company otherwise credibility is gone.
James Tansey, Associate Professor, UBC, explained that businesses have to change the way they operate; today’s markets are more connected to consumers. Likewise, social responsibility has evolved over the last 10 - 20 years from being a “fig leaf” application to part of a deliberate strategy.
Tamsey is also co-founder of Offsetters.com which provides “carbon offsets.” These are investments in projects that prevent greenhouse gases from being emitted into the atmosphere. A company can purchase carbon offsets to counterbalance it own direct emissions.
Tim O’Reilly is among the most influential thought leaders in the Web 2.0 field. O’Reilly has been referred to as one of the gurus of the participation age. His firm coined the term “Web 2.0” and they host pivotal summits and expos in the Valley and around the globe.
When it comes to the crowd, O’Reilly uses the terms “collective intelligence” rather than “crowdsourcing.” What does that mean? O’Reilly has identified a couple of important concepts that are connected to the idea of harnessing collective intelligence.
First, is the idea of what he has called the open source paradigm shift. In today’s environment, there is a process of commoditization where the value is going out of many classes of software that people used to pay for. But there is still value; it is a question of where on the stack the value is located. This led O’Reilly to rethink the nature of the web and to come up with some new ideas around what is now referred to as “Web 2.0.” Moving up the stack includes using the internet as a platform, software as a service and harnessing collective intelligence.
By contrast, there is what O’Reilly calls moving down the stack, such as “Data is the Next Intel Inside” concept. This analysis is based on what Clayton Christensen calls “The Law of Conservation of Attractive Profits” (I discuss this in e-Preneur in the discussion of Christensen’s writings in Step #2 under “Classic Insights on Innovation”). The basic point is that every time you see something for free, then something else is becoming expensive. The impetus for this development was Linux and other types of open source software, which was a disruptive force that changed the game. Open source software leverages the power of network effects, enlightened self-interest, and the architecture of participation. But the trend didn’t stop there. O’Reilly noticed that many of the most successful websites were also harnessing user participation and the network effects that ensue.
Second, the internet is the platform. O’Reilly explains that once you realize that we’re in a new platform era, you have to ask yourself what makes for success on that platform. On the PC, it was all about building applications for individual user productivity. On the network, it’s about building applications that enable shared activity. But that’s not just explicit collaboration. It also includes implicit collaboration.
O’Reilly’s view is that to the extent that any Web 2.0 company uses network effects to their fullest potential they have harnessed collective intelligence. Google’s realization that links were a kind of user generated “voting” on the best site for a topic (i.e. Page Rank) and could be used to deliver better search results was arguably the real beginning of the Web 2.0 revolution. But each in their own way, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, Craigslist and Wikipedia all are showing different ways to harness collective intelligence to add value. Amazon, for example, has doggedly and persistently pursued the notion of users adding value. They didn’t have a built-in architecture of participation, but they worked on it.
O’Reilly explains that, “the key is to work together; harnessing creative intelligence is the heart of Web 2.0.” O’Reilly notes that the key question for companies to get involved in Web 2.0 is to ask, “what can we do on a shared network?” The objective is to build networks that get better as more people use them; this is the basis for the next generation of internet companies.
Stanford University is firmly embedded in the ecosystem of Silicon Valley. Numerous high-tech stars have received training and made key connections in this cauldron of creativity. Stanford’s campus has birthed companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Cisco Systems, Yahoo, eBay and Google. In 1996, the Graduate School of Business at Stanford established the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (CES), not only to teach students, but also to “provide resources for students and alumni embarking on entrepreneurial ventures” and “establish relationships with the local entrepreneurial community.”
At the heart of the academic machine is H. Irving Grousbeck, director of the CES. I spoke to Grousbeck about demystifying the nature of entrepreneurship. The full interview is included in Entrepreneurial Excellence: Profit from the Best Ideas of the Experts. Grousbeck explained that one aspect of demystifying entrepreneurship is to identify commonalities among successful entrepreneurs. Grousbeck identifies five attitudes that he has observed often accompany success.
First, accomplished entrepreneurs demonstrate “an unending dissatisfaction with the status quo.” The entrepreneur thinks he/she can do something better than the way it is being done at present; in other words, he or she pursues opportunity through change.
Second, an entrepreneur must have “a healthy self-confidence.” Grousbeck explains that an entrepreneur must be “willing to be lonely, to make tough decisions, to stand on a level of the organization chart with no peers, and to have the buck stop with him or her.”
Third, an entrepreneur must be good at what he/ she does; Grousbeck calls this “reasonable competence.” Without skill or talent, an entrepreneur will have difficulty assembling a team and launching a venture.
A fourth beneficial attitude is “concern for detail.” While some entrepreneurs are big thinkers and visionaries, they always have someone looking after the details.
Fifth, an adept entrepreneur must have a “tolerance for ambiguity” ; in other words, he or she must be willing to accept an uncertain future. After all, not every venture succeeds, and rarely does one evolve according to plan. Grousbeck clarifies, however, that being comfortable with ambiguity is not the same as accepting unnecessary risk.
These five attitudes are a starting point for success in the entrepreneurial process—but this must be coupled with a clear understanding of the fundamental issues of money and timing. With respect to money, Grousbeck teaches that the functions of the entrepreneur and the capital provider are very different. According to Grousbeck, don’t bring your own money to your new venture. He and his co-founder each provided $3,500 to found Continental Cablevision in 1964; these personal resources were then supplemented by $650,000 in bank and investor financing. Grousbeck states that an entrepreneur who relies on his own money for launching a venture typically puts a ceiling on ambition, because “one tends to define the scope of one’s venture by the size of one’s pocketbook.”
With respect to timing, Grousbeck warns, “An entrepreneur may need to live for six months to two years without any income while his/her idea is being market-tested and perfected.” In other words, an entrepreneur must figure out how to buy some time—and shouldn’t plan on instant success. Furthermore, Grousbeck notes that careful analysis is part of the equation: “Analysis is not something to be left at the doorstep; rather, it is a critical element in optimizing the odds of entrepreneurial success.”
What is Web 2.0? Is it a sideshow for small companies or a worthwhile strategy for the mainstream? KPMG hosted a session last night in Vancouver on The Corporate Adoption of Web 2.0. The evening session introduce some of the core concepts behind Web 2.0 for an audience that may be familiar with the terms but not with the core principles and whether they have value for large companies.
One featured speaker was Mike Sikorsky, CEO, Cambrian House, Calgary who addressed, “How crowdsourcing is changing the way companies do business.”
Sikorsky, in his inimitable style, explained the difference between two ways to tap into the crowd: “implicit” is by people clicking on links and “explicit” which is by deliberately voting in response to a posed question. Thus, people may be contributing to the wisdom of the crowd without being aware.
He distinguished different methods of pplication: from tapping the wisdom of crowds (which can be quite passive), to participation (which requires a crowd of interested people) and commerce (where there is some potential to make money). Sikorsky gave examples of larger companies (such as Starbucks) that are integrated crowd participation into their websites.
Another speaker was Leonard Brody, a partner of Vancouver success story, NowPublic, who focused on “The truth about user generated contents and the future of news.” Brody gave his customary candid and insightful views on his sector and the web in general.
He noted that the news business has been devastated by the internet. The challenge for traditional news organizations, such as newspaper chains, is that the source of news is no longer controlled. Brody explained how it’s all about eyes and ears and experience. For NowPublic the assumption is there is almost always somewhere to record the news when it happens. Their objective is to build the next generation of Reuters/AP.
In this fast-changing environment it is hard to define new companies. NowPublic is a good example. They are often referred to as a “citizen journalism” site. Brody points out that this is a term invented by journalists. He explained that NowPublic is not in the news business - they are instead a “global news intelligence network.” They have cracked the code on how to gather information.
NowPublic functions because society has evolved from a “witnessing population” to a “participating population.” People are involved in the process. Brody notes that, “The events of our time will be captured by amateurs.”
Another insightful comment was that our society has gone from “hyper local” to “hyper personal;” in other words, geography is not the determining factor in what people are interested in. Instead, they want news that relates to their interests. As an example, Brody cited Facebook which dominates news feeds—people only get the news that they think is important.
One of the issues that come up around Web 2.0 is to determine why people are involved. Brody admitted that if it was just about money, then the tasks of companies would be easer. However there are varied motivations. The list according to Brody: money (this is the smallest); vanity and ego; discussion about a specific issue; accidental bystanders; and people who are simply nuts (the last was a crowd favourite).
This KPMG event session is a positive development that reflects how web principles are seeping into the mainstream. This is a standard method of the diffusion of innovation. The new ideas typically appear on the fringes and then work their way into the mainstream. This is the path to “intrapreneurship”—innovation within larger organizations.
As with innovation generally, it may be a game changer in some contexts and in others it can be an additional tool. As I point out in ePreneur, Web 2.0 principles, such as crowdsourcing, may be the basis for a company (such as Cambrian House or NowPublic), but they can be a strategic tool of implementation for other companies.
NowPublic is a participatory news network which mobilizes an army of reporters to cover the events that define our world. In twelve short months,... [more]
Launched in 2006, Cambrian House began as a crowdsourcing community using a wisdom of crowds based approach to discover new business and technology... [more]
I recently interviewed Mike Sikorsky on some of the lessons learned from the creation and development of Cambrian House, a pioneer in crowdsourcing. By way of disclaimer, Mike and I have since become partners.
Rick: As you look back over two years of founding and operating a crowdsourcing company, what are some of the things that you are most proud of?
Mike: First, I am most proud of that fact that we are a fairly small team sitting here in Calgary, Alberta that became thought leaders in what I believe that is going to be a part of every single company going forward.
Second, we were really proud of our launch. It is true that most companies have no idea if anyone cares about them. I was really proud that we could compel people to look at us because they thought it was meaningful.
The third thing for me, and the entire team, was to see the development of individuals in our community who have been able to develop their entrepreneurial passion.
Rick: As you look back over the past two years, what would you have done differently?
Mike: I can bluntly say that there were just some things that we were just dumb about it. That’s part of the entrepreneurial learning curve, however, particularly when you are venture into uncharted territory such as crowdsourcing. The things that we screwed up the most were things that were to some extent forecast-able. We had the organizational design wrong in the beginning. I think we had it right on the community side, but wrong on the inside.
Then you throw in the fact that we are a really flat organization. What we realized—and this is the key learning principle—was that even though we wanted a flat hierarchy, we couldn’t have a flat hierarchy of communication. We had to have a hierarchy around our communication. So changing our hierarchy of communication and putting the right corporate structure around each of the opportunities was our saving grace for the company.
Rick: What advice do you have for entrepreneurs looking at Web 2.0 opportunities?
Mike: The first piece of advice I give to anyone I ever meet is to, “just do it and shut up.” Thunder in the mouth and lightning in the hand—stop talking. No matter how many books you read, no matter how much stuff you’re going to think about, if you don’t decide to do it, you’re already dead anyways.
Second, do not work on things that no one wants. I know that sounds so stupid, but the number of companies that I know that build inventory that no one want to buy is so high that it’s phenomenal. That is why the crowd part to me is so powerful. If you can’t get a crowd around your idea, how else are you going to get traction around your idea? I think if you just do it and not focus on building inventory, you’re probably okay.
Third, you are probably going to screw up one or twice anyways, so you might as well start screwing up or blowing up whatever it is right now. I am not trying to evangelize this idea of not being prepared and not reading, but I also don’t want to evangelize this idea of people who go away for ten years before they want to start their company. It’s like saving sex for old age.
Entrepreneurs are always worried that someone is going to steal their idea. Or they’re worried that they’re structuring their capital deals wrong. I tell them, “what are you worried about?” Of course you want to plan—but don’t over plan.
Launched in 2006, Cambrian House began as a crowdsourcing community using a wisdom of crowds based approach to discover new business and technology... [more]
Crowdsourcing Directory - Just a great depository of information. Rutger and Carl do an amazing job of covering basically everything Crowdsourcing and Mass Collaboration related. They also have a big database of companies in the space. A soon-to-be-published Oxford Internet Institute study concludes that companies they analyzed are not tapping the wisdom of the crowds. Instead, “the wisdom of these networks seems to be located in the intelligence behind their management.”
Oxford, as one of the leading universities in the world, is built on serious research. As I noted in e-Preneur there is a minimal amount of research on crowdsourcing; the field is growing faster than the ability to analyze it.
I recently met with William Dutton, Director, Oxford Internet Institute, who shared that a report on the study he had led, entitled The Wisdom of Collaborative Network Organizations will be published this September. Dutton and his research team tackled issues related to the notion of the “wisdom of the crowds:” how do you manage networked individuals and capture the value of their activities?
Dutton’s team conducted a number of interesting case studies of what he calls “collaborative network organizations. One company is Sermo, a community-based knowledge ecosystem of 50,000 licensed physicians in the US. Physicians can ask and answer questions and surveys posed primarily by doctors and pharmaceutical firms. The Sermo community identifies interesting health trends, case and other novel health insights for the benefit of multiple stakeholders.
They also examined distributed news aggregators such as Digg which, of course, display stories based on user rankings. They looked at conditions under which the crowd is smart and analyzed the bias of several modes of information aggregation and assessed the risk of mob behaviour. Another news aggregator, not covered, is Vancouver-based NowPublic.
They also looked at A Swarm of Angels which supports open content film production. The project is based in Brighton, England but the company extended its open source model to movie making so that it could bring distributed collaborators into the film project.
Dutton then distinguished these collaborative network organizations based on three levels of progressive performance: sharing, contributing and collaborating.
In sharing, individuals contribute to the creation of the information product and the benefits are reputation enhancement, influence and, in some cases, fees. An example is Innocentive which matches researchers (problem-solvers) with problems (problem seekers). It is a means of finding problem solvers rather than collaborating on work.
In the contributing scenario, a company or organization will set up a platform for soliciting and processing contributions. The company’s costs involve the creation and management of the platform for generating and managing community input. The benefit to the company is the licensing or sales of the platform or network (i.e. advertising or third party access). Sermo is a good example of Web 2.0 trends as it offers user-generated content. Physicians can remain anonymous but their answers can be rated.
Finally, there is collaboration with the outcome being co-created products.This results in the creating and management of a co-created product (i.e. software, films). The benefits capture is the licensing or sale of information projects; non-monetary benefits are training, status, notoriety. An example is “A Swarm of Angels” where shared information is central to the co-production process.
Dutton’s team reached a couple of key conclusions based on this study. First, organizations may think they are tapping the wisdom of the crowds—but they aren’t. Dutton explains that, “the wisdom of these networks likes primarily in the intelligence behind their management” and the channeling of contributions. His case studies uncovered “a variety of network management levers that can yield more useful outcomes.” These levers include architecture design, degree of openness, the controls employed and how management organizes the tasks.
Second, who benefits? Individuals perceive benefits by reducing their costs through participation or something as intangible as reputation enhancement. The benefits for the organization include reduced overall costs and often facilitate a greater sense of group identity.
As I pointed out in my recent book, the analysis of crowdsourcing, the wisdom of the crowds and related concepts is in its infancy.Serious academic research is welcomed as further progress towards having companies understand the true potential of how to apply crowd power for positive entrepreneurial outcomes.
“Will it change the world?” This is the question that he always asks when looking at a business. Shai Vyakarnam is the Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
Cambridge was recently placed in a Financial Times ranking as the 2nd top university in the world, after Harvard and in front of Oxford. So, the university is a magnet for global, and particularly European, talent. And Vyakarnam parses out advice on where bright minds should focus their energy.
His Centre is all about spreading the spirit of enterprise and to be a catalyst to grow world-changing businesses in Cambridge and beyond. Vyakarnam has seen a lot of business ideas in his day. He has been an entrepreneurship educator and inveterate global networker for longer than the life span of Mark Zuckerberg.
Vyakarnam recalls vividly how the dot com boom and bust was all about eyeballs and traffic—but where was the business model? While a number of solid companies emerged, too many ended up on the venture capital scrap heap. Cambridge is a great environment to observe high-tech growth developments generally and Web 2.0 trends specifically.
Cambridge is located by “the Fens,” also known as the Fenland. The Fens are like a low lying flat wetland, subsequently drained, and converted to agricultural use. Cambridge is sometimes referred to as the “Silicon Fen” as it is one of the leading high tech centres in Europe. Add this to your web lexicon along with “Silicon Alley” in New York and “Silicon North” which is seemingly claimed by all parts of Canada.
Silicon Fen is home to a large cluster of high-tech businesses, especially those related to software, electronics and biotechnology. Vyakarnam refers to this as “deep technology”—intellectual property that takes years of “slow burn” to develop. Many of these start-ups have connections with Cambridge University, and the area is now one of the most important technology centres in Europe.
How did high tech start in the Fen? The so-called “Cambridge Phenomenon,” giving rise to start-up companies in a town previously only having a modest light industry related to the electrical sector, is usually traced back to the founding of the Cambridge Science Park in 1970. The university at that time moved away from a traditional low-development policy and invested in high tech.
The Judge Business School estimated in February 2006 that there were around 250 active start-ups in the Silicon Fen directly linked to the University, valued at around US$6 billion. Silicon Fen has not seen the same focus on Web 2.0 companies, whose strength is often in a unique, first to market utility, rather than grounded in complicated software.
But Judge Business School at Cambridge is connecting itself more closely to Silicon Valley trends. Oxford and Cambridge (often grouped as “Oxbridge”) cooperated in a program last year which important key industry types from Silicon Valley for a venture conference. The Silicon Valley stars, meanwhile, were eager to tap meet some of the leading minds in Europe.
It is also important for Vyakarnam to stay in touch with Silicon Valley as some of the Cambridge graduates end up in that environment pursuing their dreams. As Cambridge celebrates its 800 year anniversary, Vyakarnam helps his students put their quest in a balanced context.
