Innovation in Software

The more observant amongst you will have noticed a couple of things about this blog recently:

1. There have been very few updates in recent months
2. When I have updated it, I haven’t been talking much about innovation in software, which given the title is what you’d expect

Most of the cool little things I see out there I am now throwing out via Twitter, and as time is – now more than ever – a premium commodity for all of us, I don’t think it’s fair to keep on dumping my brain into the ether.

For 2010, Vagueware will get a new website (sneak peek the beta if you want) and a new, more “corporate” feel blog. The RSS feed you might be reading this through will move across to that new blog. It might be a little drier, but it will focus on what we’re actually up to over at Vagueware HQ a little more closely.

In addition, in the first quarter of 2010, I’ll be starting up several brand new blogs each with a specific focus. I have a wide range of interests when it comes to software, and I think each area deserves attention all by itself. It helps you as a reader to segment them more, and it helps me stay focused when I write – something this blog has suffered from.

Specifically, you can look out for blogs focusing on digital entrepreneurship, software development process and best practice, and a couple of other ideas I’ve been mulling over for a while. Each of those will be announced at the new blog, along with the product announcements (no, really!), planned for early 2010.

The experiments conducted here will continue in other channels – such as getting the community to pay for half my time for the first part of 2010 – and I can’t see me giving up blogging completely at all any time soon.

However, in essence, this is the last post for Innovation in Software for now. A message will appear on all pages stating this site is now here purely as an archive, and all comments will be turned off in one week. No need to unsubscribe from RSS – you will be moved magically over to the new blog feed soon. Thank you for your continued readership, and I hope that at some point since this blog started on September 1st 2006 , I’ve given you something to think about and/or enjoy.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I announced my rather confusing and eccentric plan to work for the community for cheap for a few months next year.

The response has been so-so. I still think it’s feasible, I just think the way I laid it out has confused a few people.

It looks like the most popular ideas are:

• Run a startup weekend
• Teach the basics of programming to at least 100 kids and/or unemployed people (the feasibility of this could be challenging)
• Run a “Skills Gap Camp” for Undergraduates

These and other ideas can get voted on here:

http://ideas.vagueware.com/pages/33882-pledge-ideas

I think by the end of this week we’ll be settling on the top few, and I’ll commit to offering up 30 full-time days over the next 3 calendar months to make them all happen (and cover all costs of doing so) providing the cash can be raised to cover those costs. Expect the can to be rattled sometime next week – I’m thinking about letting people pledge any amount, not just £60, we’ll see.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have something valuable to offer you: a big pot of bubbling time.

I’ll be frank with you about something nobody ever tells you about this industry when you get into it: every year during December and January work gets quiet for a bit. As a consequence, I get bored. Very, very bored.

I have spent the last few weeks banging the sales drum to try and stop the interminable coma that normally sets in, but once again everything looks quiet. That leaves me with a conundrum: what to do for the 8-10 very quiet weeks that are about to arrive.

I’ve thought through some options. There are some projects on the go based on Lean Product Development principles I’ve been ranting about, and that will occupy some of my time, but I thought I would propose an idea I’ve wanted to do for some time. It’s only now I feel it might actually come off.

In short, I’m prepared to offer 50% of my paid time to the local (Northern UK), digital sector community in return for a heavily discounted fee.

That time would be in addition to the time I already spend working on Fly The Coop, at events like GeekUp, replying to e-mails from people seeking advice on a whole host of matters, and generally championing the local sector.

With this additional time, I could take on one or more of a variety of projects:

• Do some research/development on behalf of the community
• Travel around as a kind of Northern “digital ambassador” promoting local firms and startups
• Work on some open-source software of particular benefit to the community
• Organise some community events
• Go and spend some extra time on circuit-rider activities helping local charities
• Write up some training materials or run workshops (with caveats: see below)
• Some of the ideas from the Geek Social Responsibility Page could be worked on more intensively
• Anything else you can think of by adding an idea in the special idea forum I’ve created for this

The appropriate skill set you can work with is:

• 15 years commercial software development experience
• About 3-4 years experience of providing training (I’m now a part-time lecturer to boot)
• A well-known community champion who could network on behalf of sponsors
• Ability to churn out research and reports, as well as pretty much any kind of written word you can imagine (heck, I’d try and write you a musical if you really wanted one)
• Lots of contacts across technology, finance, public sector and other fields

What’s more, I’m prepared to do a deal on costs: I will give my time to these projects for £200/day + VAT, which is considerably less than my clients pay for my time (ask them if you want). I feel I can afford to do this discount because it’s only half my time, and these projects will benefit the community at large and so I will be compensated for the loss of income via a warm feeling inside.

To summarise, I’m prepared to offer 30 days of my time over the next 3 months for a total of £6,000 + VAT for a community-orientated project or group of projects. This is for time only, so any material costs (such as travel, etc.) would need to be found too – I’ll work that angle once we get there.

Now, here’s where you get involved. I could just go and try and find one big sponsor and spend the next few months spending their money doing what they thought would be good for the community. I’d like to try something more creative and inclusive: I’d like to try and get 100 people or businesses to pledge £60 each (£69 including VAT) to these projects. In other words, I’d like to be the “employee” of you, a substantial number within the community for half my time for the next 3 months.

Some people/organisations may wish to pledge more, but I don’t feel that should give them more voting rights – the community will decide what the work consists of, not just a few with deeper pockets.

What do you get in return in addition to my time? Simply: your name/company name and logo or picture and link up as a sponsor; the ability to ask me to fetch you cups of tea from time to time; knowledge that your will is being done on behalf of the community; a subsequent warm, fuzzy glow inside that a small amount of your money has gone into benefiting the community.

This might seem a crazy idea, I know. If it doesn’t work, we’ll all have learned something I hope.

The first thing is for you to decide how you think I should spend that time, so:

1. Go to the Pledge ideas forum
2. Add ideas, or vote for other ideas
3. AND/OR fill in the pledge signup form so we can keep you updated as we move into the next stage
4. Once 100 people have expressed an interest and the ideas are getting more solid, I’ll set up a proper pledge at pledgebank.com and you can decide if you want to go ahead or not. We’ll contact you using the details below

If we don’t get the full pledge, we’ll revisit what the sticking point might be and take it from there. If there are several projects with lots of votes, time will be divided up between them, and you can always withdraw your pledge, it’s not a bind commitment (we’ll ask for cash down the line though).

There are however a few caveats:

1. I/Vagueware can’t do anything illegal, so please do not pledge if your idea is a bank robbery on behalf of GeekUp attendees.
2. Vagueware banks with the Co-operative Bank which places some ethical constraints on our business activities as a condition of us being able to bank with them (which I agree with). No arms trading or ideas involving animal testing, please.
3. Vagueware can’t go into breach of contract, so I can’t work on something competitive to an existing Vagueware client project, and some areas of training may be off-limits due to exclusivity guarantees. I don’t think this will be a problem, but if it is, I’ll say so as soon as the idea is mentioned
4. I get final say on whether I want to work on a project. If you suggest something I would loathe or is unworkable, I’ll let you know and you can choose to withdraw your pledge or not.

Feel free to discuss in the comments or elsewhere. You should soooo discuss this on Twitter and your own blog…

I await your thoughts and instructions. In the meantime some FAQs:

There is this project that needs some work, and…

OK, stop right there. Projects should ideally be discrete. If I need to go and convince somebody else to show me stuff or let me in behind the scenes because a mob has asked me to, this could get complex. We’ll need to negotiate. Ideally this should be completely blue-sky, blank, brand new projects. If you have an amazing idea that needs me to go in and “fix” something, I’ll look at it, but it’s probably – 90% of the time – going to be a bad, bad idea. I’m also not interested in helping people with projects they’ve messed up without a good reason – it causes political issues all over the place. If it’s a commercial project that needs fixing, it’s probably not even worth suggesting it.

Why would I trust you? Is this a ruse/scam or something?

Vagueware Ltd has been trading for nearly 4 years, and we have never had a problem with trust. I personally am well-known locally in parts of the tech/digital sector in the North of the UK, and I don’t want to trash my reputation. If you don’t know, you might have to take it on trust that I’m not going to run off with your cash, but to further put your mind at rest, you will be able to pay in instalments and get regular progress updates if you wish. Further, I can’t actually touch the cash until the work it corresponds to has been completed – to do so would basically be illegal (or at the very least would upset my accountant and other advisers).

Can I pledge less than £60? I’m skint but want to support this!

If lots of people pledge less, we need more people or the time that’s paid for has to come down to reflect that, but yes, email me and we’ll talk about it.

I am a multinational corporation who wishes to abuse this project for my own nefarious means. Where do I sign up?

If you want to pledge more that’s fine, but realise that one pledge is one vote in terms of how I spend my time, no matter how big the pledge is. If you’re cool with that, email me and let’s talk.

Can we just gang together and pay you to do something stupid?

No. I get final refusal on all project proposals, and will only do things that have a clear benefit to the community either in a broad sense or specifically the digital community. My time is scarce, please consider using it for a greater good.

Hey I’ve got a question you haven’t answered!

Leave it in the comments, and I’ll address it.

One of the problems I sometimes have when heading up a developer team is just getting the right kit in the right hands. I have a project now where I need to get an iPhone and a Blackberry 8900 Curve to a developer, but we’re blocked.

I speak to teams occasionally that need to get iPhones to developers but don’t want to take on contracts, nor do they want the devices locked to O2 for ever more (or even in the first place). You can buy them online, but at around £650 for each 32GB 3GS, kitting out at a team of just a few developers can be painfully expensive.

Sometimes I’ll see a team come together that needs a pile of development kit just for a couple of months to see a project through. I’ve even heard of one team buy half a dozen Mac Minis at the start of a project, bill it to the client, and then come the end of the project they had no use for the machines any more. Talk about waste!

The logistics of this stuff is scary. Managing cashflow, sourcing equipment, it all just takes time.

When I see something that is taking a developer away from getting product shipped, I wonder to myself “isn’t there a better way?”. And tonight, I realised when it comes to sourcing hardware and software for development teams, there is. Vagueware could, if people wanted, help.

We can source kit, (including legitimate and factory-fresh unlocked and SIM free iPhones), for considerably less than you can pick the same equipment up for on the high street or eBay. Need 20 machines by Monday? With Photoshop installed on 5 of them? And XCode or Visual Studio ready to roll on the rest? We could do that, quite easily thanks to knowing enough guys on the wholesale side of the hardware business.

In essence, I’m thinking about offering hardware/software bundles for developers – custom packages, tailored for projects – priced at wholesale prices. Even renting out kit if that’s what people need.

I’m just floating this as an idea right now, if the feedback is good, I’ll look into making it happen.

On the GeekUp mailing list, some business development advice was being asked for in terms of growing revenues and finding sales channels.

The advice being offered was to specialise: choose a niche and excel within it. Good advice, but the recipient started talking about the problems that come with specialising in CakePHP – a technology framework for rapid development of web applications – and I felt compelled to chip in with advice I think might be worthy of putting to a wider audience:

Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking specialisation means technology specialisation.

Business people don’t know about CakePHP. They know about e-Commerce, or customer forums, or customised marketing emails, or intranets where employees share knowledge.

Talk in their language, not yours.

When I go out and do sales, I talk about using Agile methodologies, iterative development, growing the technology base as revenue and budget allow. We use methods that ensure desired behaviour is captured and tested against cheaply, so changes in business assumptions are cheap to re-factor in the code – i.e. we reduce the cost of change to as close to zero as possible.

They couldn’t give a stuff what I’m actually saying is “we code Ruby on Rails with Cucumber, Culerity and RSpec tests”, because that doesn’t mean anything to them.

So, follow the market specialisation, not the technology specialisation when you speak to clients. Sure, choose the tech you like working with, but talk to your clients in terms of eCommerce stores, bold new ideas, e-mail marketing or super-slick brochureware sites as part of marketing campaigns.

Same as with selling anything: you sell benefits, not features*

All the big agencies I’ve seen thrive have chosen this style. The small guys seem to bang on about technology (or even worse “we only use GNU/Linux tools in production of your website”), and being able to do “anything” and get frustrated when people aren’t lining up at the door – the clients who like those shops generally aren’t the ones most of us want anyway.

* Before somebody points out that some gadgets “sell” on feature lists, that’s not what’s happening. When I say “this camera has triple 15 megapixel CCD sensors”, you might think I’m selling a feature. I know though that a geek who is into this price niche will likely transfer that feature in their head into “I can take really sharp pictures with good natural colour definition pictures with that camera”. I sold you a benefit via your own knowledge of the possibilities of the feature. :-)

It seems obvious, but most people miss it. Talking in the language of technology and features is a mistake I made for several years and am still struggling to deal with as I develop my new marketing material. The simple truth is, if they knew what all this BDD and Agile stuff was and why it was so good, they probably wouldn’t need our services. Now all I want to talk about when doing sales is business problems, issues and ideas and how to address them. Take heed, young grasshopper.

I’m changing what appears over at the main website over the course of this week. I’ve been playing with some ideas, and right now I’m focusing on the structure rather than the aesthetic. The most common feedback I’ve had over recent weeks and months is that it’s not entirely clear what Vagueware does, how it does it, or for whom. That is a pretty major failure in marketing communication.

So, ignoring the specifics of the aesthetics, here is a glimpse of the structure of the new page. It will hopefully look more polished than this, but you can see where it’s going in terms of message. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Click for full-size image

I wasn’t really expecting many of you to take me up on my Geek Social Responsibility thing. It was a shot in the dark, and I suppose what I was trying to answer was:

1. Can we exert more resource than we do already without hurting ourselves financially?
2. Can we make better use of that resource, so it has a greater impact?

The response was quite interesting, and several ideas proposed are now being planned, investigated and discussed. Something is happening. One point that emerged from the discussion on the GeekUp mailing list was that all of this could be taken advantage of. Steve Richardson said:

I am less inclined to devote substantial time and energy to helping charities develop web sites etc… as there is a disproportionate level of, hmmm I want to use the word abuse but fear it may be a bit strong, from certain charities who expect something for nothing and have very little appreciation of the complexity of the work involved.

Let me put it this way, do you think the directors (and other employees) of charities are working for free? I know they don’t, they are salaried, often pretty well, and I fail to see the difference between charity directors and us techies (we are all real life human beings trying to get by). There are far too many inequalities in remuneration for different jobs as it is – I recently heard that managers of Lidl earn £40K a year; without wanting to belittle Lidl managers, I am certain that the required skills for managing a supermarket are at least comparable with the skills required to develop web sites well and am absolutely certain that many people undertaking this role are paid a lot less.

Perhaps if the charity directors salary was split between the director and the ‘volunteering’ techie I may be more inclined to contribute… until then I think I need to concentrate on keeping my own head above water.

This is a common complaint: I am trying to make a living, these people are expecting the moon on a stick, and I’m falling short for obvious reasons.

Part of the issue is that Steve – like the majority of developers, designers and others in our sector – is a freelancer. The life of a freelancer is defined by the constant chasing of invoices, and trying to make sure as many hours of the day as possible are billable. Asking them to engage in “Socially Responsible Activities” is a bit like asking them “Do you want to risk not making the rent next month?”

Most people engaged in CSR activities are doing so as part of a marketing effort, a strand to their corporate behemoth “image” that makes people feel warm and fuzzy inside when they see the logo. There is an implicit silent agreement between such efforts and the charities who benefit: the company doesn’t really mean it, but needs to show they’re doing something. The charity is grateful, but know they have to fight to wrench what they can out of the company before they change their minds.

But in the geek community, things are different. When we do things, we mean it. We really, really care about doing “the right thing” and doing it well. So when the charity starts complaining that they want more and more doing, it causes resentment – this isn’t a corporate behemoth pouring some marketing budget into a “feel good” brand. It’s an individual putting heart and soul into something. The charity needs to understand that they need to tread gently and co-operate in a different way.

So, time-limited sessions like Speak to a Geek are great because the boundaries are implicit. Providing consortia to help work as a team means if somebody needs to dive out and do something else for a few days, the charity isn’t left hanging. Boundaries and back-ups are the way forward.

I’m meeting with people over the coming weeks to see how we can progress everything on the forum that seems to have grabbed people’s attention (register and vote if you haven’t already – adding ideas is even better). I will report back when I can.

As ever, my business development continues to happen in the open. I thought I’d share a couple of things that have been happening at Vagueware towers:

• I’m looking for a new office. I’ve been desk-surfing at Liquid Bronze this week and last, and whilst my home office in my new pad in Chorlton is starting to take shape, I think something city centre might be a good idea going forward. I’m looking at the usual candidates, but with Fly The Coop taking a direction based on the Science Park, I’d be interested to hear more ideas/suggestions of where to take a look.
• I have retained the services of a sales consultant. If you have never done this yourself, I advise you do (and I’m happy to let you have the details of mine – he’s freelance and understands the software sector). You might think you know what your business does and how it is perceived, but there is nothing like spending a couple of hours over coffee with a guy who understands the sector to tell you how it really is. My favourite quote from his initial report: “Paul is the brand at the moment. It will take time to establish Vagueware instead”. Too true.
• We’re going VAT registered and taking the opportunity whilst changing our accounting procedures to change our accounting platform. All the cool kids at the moment are raving about Kashflow – anybody got any experience with it or others?
• Right now there are 4 sub-contractors working on Vagueware projects, and I expect in August/September for that to rise to 6. The recruitment drive has gone spectacularly well with over 20 applicants – I want to hire them all – and it’s now just a case of getting the order book in a place to be able to commit to salaries for the long-term. I’m not hiring somebody without at least 3-6 months of their salary in the bank.
• There is discussion – don’t laugh – about me writing a book. Early days. We’ll see where it goes, but I’m really curious to find out what the advantages of a publisher actually are given most of the discussions so far have focused on how I will go out and “sell” the book. I could earn more by doing the same but publishing via Lulu. The only big advantage I can see is having “published by xxxxxx” on my CV.

It seems everybody is busy right now. I can’t remember a time when the sector as a whole was this buoyant in the UK. Talk of recession seems to be passing the bespoke/boutique sector by. I hope it’s the same with you, and if it isn’t let me know as I have work I’m directing away all the time now.

In my post on GeekUp Revisited I closed my points with the following:

P.S. there was something else brought up last night: some of you have been pulling my accounts from Companies House. Save yourself some money, and next time just ask me, I won’t be offended and I won’t even ask you why you want them – as a member of the public you’re legally entitled to them on demand.

What does irk me slightly though, is the conversation I had suggested some of you had been discussing said accounts between yourselves and picking holes at my 2-year old accounts (2008 hasn’t been filed yet), behind my back. That just seems a bit rude. I’m sorry if I’ve offended or upset you in some way to the point of you wishing to find chinks in my armour in any way possible, but if you have something to say to me please just say it to me. I know my style can come across as arrogant and patronising to some, but I genuinely would prefer to have an open discussion with people rather than you spend time questioning an ancient business model of mine behind my back.

It was at the end of a long post, I just wanted to say “hey, come on, let’s find chinks in my armour together”, but some people got a little upset I was accusing them of something in private correspondence with me.

I’ve now had an apology from somebody who had pulled my accounts and discussed them with others. I’m not sure they were the only ones, but I don’t care. I didn’t want a witch-hunt, I wasn’t looking for somebody to blame. They apologised for any hurt felt on my part, and in future I hope we’ll have a much more open dialogue.

I’m committed to running as open a business as I can. All future recruits will see a full set of accounts (and be trained on how to read them if necessary), before being offered a job. Accounts and cashflow projections will be viewable internally, live. I’ll publish submitted accounts here at the same time they’re submitted to Companies House. I will happily discuss with anybody who wants to discuss them what they mean.

My business isn’t perfect. I’m not perfect. But we’re both getting better at what we do. It was the fact people were referring to 2007 accounts as current – and therefore potentially confusing recruits who thought the business was pulling in less cash than it is – that concerned me most. I’m 70% convinced I lost one programmer as a recruit because of the confusion circulating in the game of Chinese whispers that circulated. It’s easy to see how it happens:

Potential recruit: I’m thinking of working for Vagueware
Person A: Yeah? I pulled the accounts. Doing sod all money.
Potential recruit: What the latest accounts?
Person A: Latest ones, yeah, from Companies House. Think he’s only doing a bit of revenue really. Can’t see how he can hire!
Potential recruit: He told me he was doing £x a year!
Person A: Well, he must be lying then…

It’s not hard to see how Person A’s mistake in thinking the latest accounts from Companies House are the latest trading accounts (despite being nearly 18 months old), and how that might make the potential recruit feel Vagueware is not the company for them. That is what upset me: losing talent – precious, rare, irreplaceable talent – because of miscommunication. If everybody concerned had just asked me to explain those accounts I could have cleared it up in 30 seconds. Alas, Chinese whispers seems to have taken precedence…

As I’ve had an apology though, the subject is closed. What’s done is done, so, we’re done, let’s move on. Next time, talk to me – I really don’t mind talking about money, assets and how (not?) to run a business. In 2006 and 2007 I excelled at running a business badly. There are lessons in there I want to share, and one day will.

Last night was GeekUp Manchester night, and as a one-off the geeks combined forces with Manchester Digital and Northern Digitals to have a “Bastille Day BBQ” at Atlas on Deansgate.

I haven’t been to GeekUp in a while, and I’d heard that attendance was dwindling down to almost Manchester BSD UG levels (which is now half a dozen mates having a few drinks in the Briton’s Protection).

Last night – with 250+ members of the local industry looking to let their hair down – was quite a different affair.

In fact, it had the air of something much bigger and interesting than anything I’d seen in the city since the days of my department at MMU running Wired City (recently resurrected, but I can’t find an authoritative URL for it), and was kind of like all the social events across the city combined, run by some of the people behind Big Chips, all with more beer and food. It was also surprisingly upbeat, with everybody busy and nobody complaining about the economic slow-down – in fact, some of the discussion was about how to get hours down to a manageable level so as to take weekends off.

I ended discussing something last night with Dan Hardiker of Adaptavist that I realised I hadn’t really stated publicly yet: I don’t need to lead or direct something in order to participate in it

I am a man who likes to be in charge of my future. I do not react well to being directed into anything, and resist attempts at management if I consider it futile or inefficient (I was a pain in the backside for some of my teachers at school).

My community involvement in the last few years has as a result been mostly trying to lead things. BarCamp Manchester, helping where I could with GeekUp, pushing along co-working and other collaboration opportunities, cheering on NWDC and all of its participants… and more.

I’ve enjoyed my part in all of that, and I’ve met some incredible people in the process. However, a couple of months ago I informed the other directors of Fly The Coop that I intend to stand down as chairman at the next AGM. I do not intend to run another BarCamp. If somebody wants to run a co-working day or HackSpace I’ll show my face and take part if workload permits, but for now I have no plans to lead or direct anything other than my own businesses (I’m currently director of four, soon to be three, then back to four again probably), and to focus on helping my customers.

It took me six months in the wilderness to understand it, but now I have, I think I can be of more value to the community as somebody in the cheap seats, participating. I hope you’ll agree.

I also discussed the fact that word-of-mouth is the very best sales channel available.

I’ve been doing some serious sales work in the last couple of months. I have mined the Official Journal of the European Union for public sector opportunities, I’ve done cold-calls, I’ve done networking events, I’ve really pushed the boat out in order to secure the cashflow to hire the three full-time staff I want to in the next couple of months (more about those guys soon, I hope!). I got the odd tickle, but nothing solid so far.

Virtually every single sale I’ve landed on the order books in the last couple of months has come from somebody, somewhere, being in discussion with a client and saying something along the lines of “I think we need Paul Robinson for this one…”, and bringing me into the project. Six months from now, I hope to have a team who everybody who knows it wants involved in more projects.

Reputation is everything. I have no idea where I got mine from as 95% of my work is behind the scenes and under NDA involving back-end processes and intranet functionality, but I’m grateful for it anyway.

As such, I need to be more public about the work I’m doing, provide a better public profile of my clients and what I do for them, and go to a lot more events where I try and find partners for future projects. The Internet might be making geography irrelevant for a lot of work, but it doesn’t make relationships any less important – in fact, in a World where there are thousands of development teams a click away, a team you can trust is becoming more valuable than ever.

And lastly, I discussed for a while Vagueware’s plans for the future and if I’m going mad.

I concede that from the outside, my behaviour must look quite odd. A couple of years of scrabbling away, a year of landing a whole bunch of contracts in one go (one of which became very intensive for a while and so the sales cycle seized completely), all punctuated by random bursts of community activity, and then a half-year of what seems to be freelancer-grind, culminating in… a recruitment drive and an announcement that suddenly this company is about to get medium-sized quite quickly.

Some people think I’ve struck gold, others seem to be confused still as to what it is Vagueware does, and others don’t get the idea that managing true R&D innovation is difficult and can’t just be done the same way you build a regular e-commerce platform. Some ask about Kagtum, others want to know about the idea bank. It all seems a bit of a mess, and many people seem confused. If I’m honest, I’m still clarifying some of the details myself.

This is all entirely my fault. It’s not that the direction isn’t clear, it’s that is not clearly communicated. Over the next month the website will get an overhaul to make it clear:

• What Vagueware does, and who it does it for
• What Vagueware intends to do in future
• Why you should give a damn given I’m just that bald guy at the social stuff that talks a lot

I actually feel as if I’m letting some of you down at times, but last night it became clear why until recently growth was so hard to come by: it’s difficult to get leads if people don’t know what you do.

So, my bad. Sorry.

Last night overall was pretty great and I definitely think we should do larger events like that more often. The diversity and depth of the sector in this city is one of its strengths and last night left me considering long and hard whether I really want to move away next year (more on that some other time).

We tend to silo ourselves far too much – designers only hang out with designers, developers with developers, and so on. It is only by mixing it up we can find the best opportunities for collaboration and go forward together.

We should be abandoning titles we assign ourselves and start to think about how to help each other more. And that means more events like last night.

Well done to the organisers, and here’s to the next one.

P.S. there was something else brought up last night: some of you have been pulling my accounts from Companies House. Save yourself some money, and next time just ask me, I won’t be offended and I won’t even ask you why you want them – as a member of the public you’re legally entitled to them on demand.

What does irk me slightly though, is the conversation I had suggested some of you had been discussing said accounts between yourselves and picking holes at my 2-year old accounts (2008 hasn’t been filed yet), behind my back. That just seems a bit rude. I’m sorry if I’ve offended or upset you in some way to the point of you wishing to find chinks in my armour in any way possible, but if you have something to say to me please just say it to me. I know my style can come across as arrogant and patronising to some, but I genuinely would prefer to have an open discussion with people rather than you spend time questioning an ancient business model of mine behind my back.

See you all again soon at the next GeekUp or other similar event.