Hull’s been in a tough economic situation for many years now.  The reasons behind this and the associated social impact are complex.  What’s clear though is the need for some sort of economic rejuvenation.  Many believe that at the heart of this rejuvenation is the growth of the Knowledge Economy.  The Knowledge Economy covers all sorts of IP-based disciplines such as law, accountancy and consulting, but I’m going to highlight four things that I think are key to growing the Knowledge Industry in the Tech Sector in Hull.

 1. Opportunity Not Investment

One of my contracts is as a consultant to a private investment fund, so I’ve seen many sorts of businesses that need investment for all sorts of reasons.  More often than not, I see businesses who think investment is the only answer to their growth… but it isn’t.

The vast majority of businesses that we turn down actually just need opportunity.  They’re great companies, doing great work, who just need a break.  The challenge to big business and public sector procurement in the city is to shop local.  Shopping local is not some sort of philanthropic act, but a recognition that you have a world class skill-set right on your doorstep.  Why not take a different view of how you commission your projects and think what’s important to the success of that project.  Do you want your new team to spend their time learning how to be the best, brightest and most knowledgeable team they can, or do you want them to spend their time learning how to play the procurement game and getting their Healthy & Safety and Environmental Policies paperwork in order?  Those sorts of things are important, but you have to see them in context.  If you’re a cash rich local company, do you need to squeeze your small business suppliers on 30, 60 or even 90 day payment runs?

 2. Collaboration

Collaboration is key.  Through collaboration we learn, grow, improve and develop.  Hull needs that collaboration, which is why groups such as HullDigital are vital.  A group of businesses willing to collaborate becomes an attractive thing, and will start (as we’ve seen in Leeds and Sheffield) to generate outside interest in the area.

Genuine collaboration and that willingness to share amongst businesses is difficult.  It requires a level of confidence and assurance around the value of your own IP.  It’s confidence that what you have has taken so much investment of your time and energy that  it becomes difficult to replicate.  My experience has always shown that those willing to share are often the ones sharing the most value.

That collaboration is not just for peer businesses though.  Big businesses can learn from small businesses.  That direct connection between the efficiency of your business and your mortgage repayments – fundamentally, that ‘Time Is Money’ is often lost as a business grows.  It’s often said that big business should be like small business, only bigger.  That’s one of the approaches that makes companies such as Apple so successful.  Steve Jobs stated the following in an Interview with Business Week in 2004:

And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

Small business doesn’t have all the answers though.  Large businesses can share how they grew to that point, the lessons they learned on the way, and some of the fundamental things they do well such as payroll and accounting.  Perhaps some of those areas I outlined earlier (Health & Safety and Environmental Policies) which are important and that previously prohibited small businesses from procuring work with large businesses, could be something big businesses help with.

3. Connectivity

KC’s new Lightstream network is a hugely exciting development for Hull.  It will free up businesses to communicate and work in ways that had previously been impossible.  It will help enable that collaboration that is so vital to economic growth.  We’ll be able to free up hours of travel/meeting time and save hundreds in travel costs.  I’m convinced that Lightstream will form the backbone of business and education in the city for years to come.

4. Education

As locally grown businesses develop they will require new talent.  We’re fortunate to have a number of great educational establishments in the city.  Stopping the ‘brain drain’ to other cities by working with universities and schools to create a new workforce for the future is key.  Businesses can help shape and guide students into jobs or starting their own businesses.  It’s an exciting time to be in education with Computer Science and Programming in schools being the latest government trend.  It’s exciting to think of the possibility of a new generation of students who are grounded and equipped with fundamental computing skills – not the latest trend or technology, as Paul Dyson put in a recent tweet.

The Future

Tech businesses come in all shapes and sizes, many of whom have no idea what they’re doing in six weeks, let alone six months.  Hull’s problems have been growing for decades, so there’s no quick fix.  As the Knowledge Economy grows, things will slowly start to look and feel very different.

We’ll see small teams of independent specialists working in a Noded way.  That might not be ticking the boxes of traditional growth and direct job creation, but the chances are that they’ll be paying more tax and spending more of their income locally than the aggregate number of employees in a similar business with a similar number of employees.

Landlords and developers who in the past could rely on economic growth to increase demand for their property will need to rethink how they provide for the needs of those new tech businesses who are quite happy working remotely and who value flexibilty and growth and aren’t interested in long term leases.

What Hull will look like in five years from now is unclear.  What’s certain though is that if the Knowledge Economy does grow in Hull, how businesses look and feel with change.  If you have an economy where knowledge becomes as critical as other economic resources, then it will mean that those rules and practices that determined success in the traditional industries of Hull will need rewriting.

It’s an exciting time to be in Hull, and a privilege to be working with some of the great minds who will be fundamental to the growth and success of Hull’s future.  Why not come along to a HullDigital Meet-Up and say hello to some of them?

In fact the preceding lines are just as prescient:

Picture this, my telephone number

One and one is what I’m telling you

Get a pocket computer

Try to do what you used to do, yeah

This was 1978. The year Epson introduced the TX-80, the first successful dot matrix printer. The year the 5.25-inch floppy disk became an industry standard. Apple (I do believe I have heard of them) introduced Apple DOS 3.1, their first operating system.

It preceded the Intel 8088 CPU (released on June 1, 1979), the first commercial version of SQL (thank you Oracle), the Motorola 6800 8-bit processor (which powered the Mac and my beloved Atari 1040ST) and VisiCalc (the first spreadsheet program). It was just over a year after the release of the Commodore PET (which I had to program in raw machine code to run heat capacity equations as fast as I needed), the Apple II and  Tandy’s TRS-80 (1.9 kB of programmable memory). DOS and the PC are 3 years in the future.

1977 Commodore announces that the PET (Personal Electronic Transactor)

Yet as I sit here, talking tech with the enthusiasts in Hull Digital, I am struck that in my pocket sits a computer with my telephone number (but regrettably not Debbie Harry’s).  Picture this; it holds a local gallery of my personal photographs, a camera to take more and access to Flickr etc. to browse further millions. All the power and flexibility to do what I used to do and so much more besides… including listening to Parallel Lines whenever I feel the urge.

I seamlessly switch between my pocket computer, my slate computer and my laptop. My content, my knowledge, my entertainment, my friends are accessible from all of them. The tools each contains are unimaginably capable; the capabilities are limited only by our imaginations. And there’s more to come.

Thank you Blondie for your glimpse of the future, so many years ago. Where to from here?

Get a pocket computer, try to do what you used to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZxVEH1eSOA

http://www.computerhope.com/history/196080.htm

This could be a massive year for the availability of video content online. We have the London 2012 Olympic games, Euro 2012 and the Diamond Jubilee here in the UK, all expected to rely heavily on the Internet for global distribution of highlights and detailed coverage alike. We are starting to enjoy recently launched online services from Netflix, LoveFilm and Sky that deliver video on demand to a hungry audience that has been weaned on the BBC iPlayer and is now heavily armed with iPads, Internet-connected televisions and a wealth of other devices from telephones to gaming consoles that are capable of tapping into this rich new seam of media content.

Yes, 2012 has the potential to be a vintage year for us, the viewing public and the consumers of entertainment content. Never before will we have had access to so much content, so easily and at such speed with so much convenience (especially if you’re in a position to take advantage of connectivity services such as BT Infinity or KC Lightstream). But is it all really so different? Watching Top Gear on my iPad using the BBC iPlayer app is fab, but it’s not really a world removed from the old days of settling down to watch the latest Top Gear on my DVR, or my VCR for that matter!

No, for me the experience that has coloured my year so far, and that has set my personal benchmark for entertainment enjoyment, combines the cinematic scope of the Peter Jackson Lord Of The Rings trilogy with an epic soundtrack and a level of immersion that even the most gargantuan 3D TV couldn’t rival (well, not without also offering me the thrill of travel-sickness and low-light eye-strain). I am of course referring to a video game, Skyrim specifically. Gaming is where it’s at, and with the 2011 release of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 representing the biggest entertainment release ever (a mind-boggling 75 copies a second) we are increasingly looking beyond Hollywood or the TV networks for our free-time kicks.

When we do watch a movie these days, as a family, on the big-screen TV in the lounge then inevitably at least one of us has IMDB primed and ready for those “what was she in?”, and, “where do I know his face from?” questions that have been a part of the viewing experience since the year dot, and with our experiences learned in the worlds of Skyrim, Portal or even Super Mario we now crave interactivity in all of its forms.

And this is why, as we participate more, as we share a collective experience more and as we submit more of our personal information into the giant black hole that is The Internet in order to do so, this is why we need to know that the gatekeepers and custodians are acting honourably. This is why, friends and fellow geeks, we need to remain engaged, alert and informed. SOPA, PIPA and Megaupload might seem like a world away from you and me, but as we transfer our “copies” of Top Gear from one device to another, as we find that innocent-looking little loophole that gets the video on the phone (just like me, with my Monday night Clarkson-fix in my VCR days) we may be inadvertent pirates, and leave ourselves exposed and vulnerable! Scary, eh?

This is the latent value of a tech-community like Hull Digital, this is the User Group (for those of us old enough to remember those) that can be our support infrastructure and our geek buddy. Use it, participate and engage! We will get out what we feed in, and in this age where the bureaucrats are now nipping at our heels our very digital liberty itself may be at stake!

So, it’s arrived. KC Lightstream is here and being totally honest, it looks amazing. How about up to 100Mbps?!

Kevin Walsh, the Chief Executive from KC announced:

Our fibre deployment is the start of something special that local people can feel proud of. At its heart it’s an investment in the future of Hull and East Yorkshire, and, I believe, a catalyst for change that will help to transform the region’s fortunes and improve local lives.

The Government has recognised that superfast broadband will play an important role in the UK’s future economic success; helping to attract new businesses, stimulate the digital sector – a key driver of growth and wealth creation in regional economies – and helping councils and other public sector bodies to deliver services to residents more efficiently.

Kevin is a great ambassador for the region and passionately believes in the potential for the Lightstream service. Having talked to Kevin over the past three years or so, the Lightstream launch has been a firm focus for the company and the planning process has been a long and hard journey, culminating in the official launch today.

The headline figures are pretty amazing – upstream speeds up to 10Mbps and downstream up to 100Mbps. More than enough to satisfy speed freaks across the region. KC have looked at both the consumer and business areas, with various packages available.

For business, the packages start as £25.00 per month and go up to £100 per month, with the speed ramping up and also the usage allowance.

One big question I had was around the difference between the Business service and the Consumer one… from what I gather this download speeds are the same but the services for businesses include bigger usage allowances and faster upload speeds which is fair enough. I’m sure there will be some overlap though…

There is a very thorough FAQ for the new business service here.

Certainly, something like the homeworker option looks terrific and a really good price too. For many of the Hull Digital community who are freelancers, developers and work from home, this kind of speed is going to be very welcome. Upload speeds of 5-10Mbps depending on package will be even more warmly received!

Moving onto the consumer offering, there are a number of different options. Bundles and stand alone packages, with the bundles being the best value. You need to pop in your postcode first of all to see if you will be able to get the Lightstream service in the coming weeks… If you are in the right area, the website shows the packages available. See below:

The 100Mbps package is available for some areas which have FTTH (Fibre To The Home). Some postcodes show the 80Mbps package as this won’t be available and will be FTTC (Fibre To The Curb).

I’ve seen a few comments about the fact that it’s not unlimited download, but anyone who is giving that as a negative, is in my opinion, looking to find something to complain about. A 500 GB monthly allowance is HUGE. I use the web daily. A lot. Now I’m not certain of my data usage, but it’s no way near that. 500GB is very fair.

The big question – who can get Lightstream and when?

The people of the Grovehill area of Beverley will be the first to receive KC’s lightning fast broadband service this year, with customer installations starting in two weeks’ time on Monday 6thFebruary. Other installations in Beverley will include the Grange Way, Lockwood Road, Butt Lane, Old Manor Lawns, Lincoln Way, Poplars Way and Norwood areas.

Further fibre installations in 2012 are planned for the following areas (subject to detailed engineering surveys):

Priory Park business park in Hessle
Barnsley Street, Belmont Street and Buckingham Street off Holderness Road
A number of East Yorkshire villages including Skidby
Flats and apartments in areas including Hull city centre
Kingswood in the north of Hull
Parts of Greatfield estate in east Hull, as well as other areas of east Hull
Victoria Dock
Parts of Sutton-on-Hull
Parts of west Hull around Pickering Park

Overall, I am seriously impressed with Lightstream. They needed to do this, no question, but from the looks of things, we are going to have an amazing service in Hull, and at a very reasonable price. I’ve seen very few negative reactions from people, with the vast majority being very positive. The only thing to have really ticked me off is that I cannot have it yet! Now where’s Kevin’s number…

Main press release can be found here.

FAQ page is here.

The first ever TEDxHull event will be held at the Hull Truck Theatre with the themeBeyond Limits.

Take a look at our amazing speakers who will inspire you, amaze you and take you to places you never imagined.

What is TEDx?
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Our event is called TEDxHull, where x = independently organized TED event. At our TEDxHull event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized.

I imagine tickets will go pretty quick for this, so I’d head on over the TEDx Hull site now and grab one!

It’s a little similar to this…

Question: What’s the best camera in the world?

Answer: The one you have with you at the time.

Following on from that…

Question:What’s the best backup in the world?

Answer: The one you use day in and day out.

This is why Apple’s Time Machine works so well. Plug in a hard drive to your Mac and forget about it which is what I’ve been looking into for some websites, both personal and for clients.

VaultPress is something which has been on my radar for while, and I’ve now installed it on here. Verdict? Just what I wanted. The sign up was painless and yes it does cost a small amount per month, but worth it in my opinion. Once you have signed up you get a special key which you use in the plugin to activate the service. The plugin is downloaded in the normal way from the backend of WordPress.

That’s it. It immediately starts backing up the site, tells you what’s happening in real time in the form of a small unobtrusive toolbar, and you can log into your own dashboard to get even more information. It offers one-click database install, and even has a “Concierge Service”:

When you install the VaultPress plugin, it opens a channel for our security and backup specialists to directly protect your critical WordPress sites. Our WordPress experts will help you with initial setup, restoring your files, and any needs in between.

Now I realise that there are plugins which download the WP database and there are plenty of other solutions (free as well). What I wanted was truly hassle free plus have the support of the VaultPress team if something went south. The fact that VaultPress is owned and run by AUTOMATTIC who happen to run a few blogs over at WordPress.com is real peace of mind.

It’s only been running for a few days, but I am really impressed, and judging by the testimonials from people, I am not alone. (Full disclosure, I am not paid to write this post, just a happy customer!).

What is Kickstarter?

Kickstarter is a new way to fund creative projects.

From January 27th onwards, the last Friday of every month, at 10.30am at Fudge, we will getting together to hang out, chat, hear about new stuff and enjoy some nice food.

Who’s this for? Anyone from the digital and technology industry in the city, startups, creatives, designers, developers, geeks, gamers, investors… you name it, if you like techie stuff, and especially the web, you’ll fit right in!

Where is it? Once again, Rosie and the team at Fudge are going to be looking after us and have a wonderful selection of food and drinks for us to enjoy. The Fudge website is here with full details of their location.

You can say you’re coming along on our MeetUp site, but actually there is no real need, just come along if you can. I look forward to seeing you!

Why? Actually for a nice reason – workload and other commitments. After the success of last year, I knew it was something I wanted to do again, and made the conscious decision to start the organising process in January.

January arrived and BOOM, a lot of work, new clients, new projects and very little time spare. This has not let up all year and I realised that I could not do the conference justice and it was not going to happen.

So next year? Well, I’m going to be starting looking at the possibility again soon, but cannot make any promises… I’d love to truth be known, but it does depend on support and backing from partners and we all know that spare money is not something that these companies have lying around at the moment. Time to start making some calls…

For all the emails, tweets and lovely comments I’ve had about it being a highlight for people’s year, I am truly grateful. Thank you.

RIP Steve 