David Rice

There are a lot of government bodies in Ireland devoted to improving the creative & tech industries, here are just a few of them;

• crea8ivity - Northern Ireland's Digital Hub
• Invest Northern Ireland
• Enterprise Ireland
• Momentum - The Northern Ireland ICT Federation
• Creative Entrepreneurs Club Northern Ireland
• National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts

They are all doing something which is better than nothing, but there is so much more we could be doing if we want to capture the same atmosphere of creativity and entrepreneurship that exists in silicon valley. I'd just like to note here that Enterprise Ireland are far ahead of the game locally, there is still a lot they could be doing but they put their Northern Irish counterparts to shame.

Invest Small, More Frequently

The traditional approach is to provide the investment, funding, grants, cheap office space and other perks to the largest companies like the Apples and Googles. These guys are mostly in it for the tax breaks, not our elite college graduates no matter how the smoke and mirrors try and reflect the situation. The fact that these companies are generally provided with incentives proportional to the number of jobs they will provide changes the prerogative of these companies, they don't need to be super efficient, small and agile as it's encouraged to be a behemoth.

The truth of the matter is that Google and Apple (and insert name of other successful tech company) all started small. The kinds of numbers that used to be needed to form and run a company are constantly being reduced through application of modern principles and great industry advances like utility computing. This all directly equates to reduced initial costs to just get out there and start a business to see if the idea works. In Silicon Valley the attitude is to just go for it, Venture Capitalists will fund a hundred small companies because odds are a lot of them will fail, some will be marginally successful and a couple will make them minted. It's probability 101.

Take the Pain Away

I have talked to many would-be entrepreneurs and some of them just can't make the leap to quitting their day job, be it for family or other money related reasons. If you could give this person just enough so they could take 6 months to a year off and help towards expenses you have just created another potential business.

Also don't make your potential entrepreneurs do such merry dances and jumping through hoops. Make it simple to apply and attain funding.

Build Communities

Now what is really interesting is that I see people on the grassroots level doing such a far better job of building communities than those paid to do that exact job.

• Over the past year there have been regular OpenCoffeeClub meetings in Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Galway and Belfast
• There were 4 BarCamp conferences in 2007 in Ireland (Belfast, Dublin, Waterford and Galway).
• The Paddy's Valley trip to Silicon Valley of 26 (or so) Irish entrepreneurs was a phenomenal success. Ask anyone else who went and they will tell you the same.
• The Coworking initiative has had great success, they managed to pull together 4 freelancers to start an office in Dublin. I've been a guest there numerous times and the atmosphere is so exciting.
• Paul Walsh has put on some great tech evenings for startups to practice pitching, cleverly named Curry 2.0.
• Techludd has quickly become the most successful and best attended event in the Irish technology industry. Setup by Anton and Jessica after being inspired by Paddy's Valley.

Now the important thing about all of these burgeoning communities are the people involved. What they have achieved in building these social networks is astounding, the big difference is that these communities have been totally based around the people that attend them and completely lacking in the Business Bullshit that tends to shroud more conventionally organised events. Such relationships have built up, business deals made and just general good craic has been had since their inception. Government bodies take heed or you will quickly become obsolete, start coming to events like these, maybe even fund a couple of them. Lets not rest on our laurels but make 2008 an even better year.

Start a Real Digital Hub

There are government funded digital hubs springing up in many different places in Ireland. They are generally new builds with spacious offices and great technical specs but their priorities are in the wrong place to really help the homegrown industry flourish.

• These digital hubs are generally structured to provide large spacious offices, with small tech startups this is not needed.
• They are generally located outside of town, away from the creative, cultural and innovative areas that entrepreneurs want to be.

Taking the Northern Ireland Science Park in Belfast as an example, it is located near the upcoming Titanic Quarter. Cheap land for building large capacity offices, more space for more bums on seats see a pattern forming? It might be a hub, but not now give it half a decade. Anyone that knows Belfast would agree that the Cathedral Quarter, Queen's Quarter or even the Linen Quarter would be a better suited venue for a hub of any kind.

There are several routes to the goal of creating a Coworking space in Belfast but the main hold up is getting enough totally committed freelancers and startups to make it a reality. What would really ease the pain would be funding from one of the government bodies to create such a place. Just enough to get going as I believe if you build it, they will come.

Questions?

What I want to know is, after reading that do you have any questions? Any ideas on how we can push forward with some of these ideas in Ireland? If you do I'd love to hear from you.

I'm going to post soon about how Universities fit into this picture, it was too much for one article.