In other words, most of the Old Street new media firms I was knew of in 2008 weren’t startups building their own products, they were doing commissioned work for others, and an attractive aspect of Old Street was that its relative cheapness could be turned into a virtue by enabling agencies to present themselves as not part of the new media ‘establishment’.

So after Matt B left town, it was bugging me that there was still no community in Old St of like-minded companies. I mean, yes BBQs and pub meets and a little bit of “Silicon Roundabout”-ness, but not *enough*.

So I decided to take it on as a mission…

At BERG, my company, the first thing we did was work with Georgina Voss – an ethnographer friend – to do some research:

http://berglondon.com/blog/2009/05/12/stories-about-silicon-roundabout/

She interviewed a lot of people, and when she reported back the basic result was that there *were* lots of companies in the neighbourhood, but that nobody felt like they were part of the same thing. To everyone, Silicon Roundabout was something happening to other people. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but it did give a good direction for future efforts.

Now I’m not sure of the particular route of this contact, but Georgina shortly went on to work with Wired UK regarding Silicon Roundabout. See this in August 2009:

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2009-10/22/help-us-map-londons-silicon-roundabout?p=6

…and that somehow informed or became Wired’s Jan 2010 special on the area.

Then – I believe because of BERG’s appearance in the Wired 100 and a focus on small, tech-focused businesses – I was asked to go to India with the new government at the end of July 2010.

I was going to turn down the offer to go, but I was still beating the drum about small businesses and Silicon Roundabout. I figured it was an ignition problem: if we could “ignite” the area, then there would be more people, more services, more good chats, more community, etc. So I decided to accompany the delegation to India, and made it my sole task for the trip to ask the smartest people I could find for advice about how to ignite. I knew this was a rare chance to put the case for supporting the emerging cluster to people who could really help.

Here’s what I said at the time on the BERG blog:

http://berglondon.com/blog/2010/08/02/india/

“Of course being so close to government was good. David Cameron took a number of ministers, and there are particular issues close to my heart: how the Internet start-ups and small businesses in London can somehow ignite into a stronger community, and contribute to the recovery. I asked for thoughts and advice, and I’ve come back with a few ideas about what could help there.”

And what actually happened was written up briefly in Wired some months later:

http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2011/02/start/silicon-roundabout?page=all

I spoke with both Rohan Silva and David Willetts — Rohan mainly. I believe I cited both the Jan 2010 Wired article as validation, and the research Georgina had done as a framing of the “ignition” problem. “I remember someone (Willetts I think?) saying that government had three levers for effecting change – legislation, taxation, and attention – and we agreed that attention was the best thing that could be brought to the area.

And four months later in November 2010 the government announced the Tech City initiative with Cameron making a visit to Brick Lane — Rohan’s baby I understand, very smart cookie that one. And what happened in those four months is of course invisible to me, the initiative involved UKTI, the Olympic Legacy project, and the Mayor’s office too. Remarkable stuff.

Two years on, I regard the Tech City project as a success. The community of knowledge is excellent – much better than it has ever been – and there are start-up specific services (like lawyers, VCs, etc) in the area, things that were hard to come by before. I wish there was more emphasis on getting into universities and demonstrating to students how they can create their own jobs, and that Silicon Roundabout is a community that can support that, and I wish more acknowledgement and support was given to London’s very special design colleges and heritage – which have created and continue to feed the strong creative history of east London – and I’ll continue to make those points whenever I get a chance.

MW