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.

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.

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.

Note how the recent sleep deprivation is showing nicely in that photograph. I meant what I said in the penultimate paragraph:

“After a decade of growth and a realisation that we are now at a tipping point of being dominant in the technology sector regionally, nationally and maybe even continentally, Manchester needs to make sure the opportunity isn’t wasted.”

The next couple of years are make or break time for us as a city in this sector. What are we doing to make sure we make it? Are we doing anything that might break it? Geography isn’t important until you factor in community and we have one of the strongest communities in the World, but we still seem to be lagging in a few areas.

One of my best friends needs some help from you all.

Last year, Sadhana’s father almost died but the heart and renal teams at Hope Hospital managed to save him and she wants to give something back. By the sounds of it, he’s going to be spending a lot more time there in the future so she wants to make sure that they have everything they need for him, and the several hundred other patients they deal with each year.

So, she’s running a charity day to raise money for the unit, in the hope that they’ll be able to help more people, and more easily.

It’s taking place on Saturday the 1st December at Monton Memorial Hall. All money goes to the Renal Unit, and at the very least you can chill out to some meditation.

Now, I’m not that into yoga myself (hence my terrible posture), but I’m doing whatever I can to lend a hand, so if you know anybody who is into yoga who wants to go down there, you fancy it yourself, or you’d like to sponsor her or anybody else attending, you should e-mail her and let her know.

Incidentally, Sadhana is – according to her students who should know these things – a really great yoga teacher. So if you know anybody looking for a teacher (or considering it yourself), throw them the URL.

Collective, localised information gathering is a big step forward, and is what Tim O’Reilly really meant when he first talked about “Web 2.0” all that time ago (OK, for a tired man like me, it seems a long time ago). It’ll take a while to get traction, but once this switch is noticed it will fundamentally change the way we think about map data.

There is however a problem – how do we make a decision of trust on a user-contributed map? Google are marking out community maps in the result so you can make your own mind up, but what would be even better is if once a map is started the community could rate and even – wiki-style – improve a set of map data?

I still think that the OpenStreetMap community has answers to questions Google have yet to ask.

I read some pretty weird stuff out there. You might think it odd given I’m all into innovation that I rarely read the likes of Techmeme or Techcrunch – the truth is, there’s little innovation in either.

I want to look at the guys who spend days lying on their backs staring at clouds and thinking to themselves “that cloud looks just like a better way to moderate pseudonymous online discussions”. I prefer artist coders to mathematician coders: they have more interesting things to say. I’ve said this so many times it’s starting to sound like a cliché: I’ve learned more about software from architecture, art and philosophy than I ever have from my University notes on formal methods.

Occasionally, as I scour the websites of the research labs of the World, I encounter something a little bit “special” in the “let’s look at something unique and apply it to the computer industry” niche. This is no exception.

HP Labs have recently published (only appeared in my RSS today, but it’s dated the 12th July) a paper on the election protocol the city of Venice used to elect its ‘Doge’, or Duke/Chief Magistrate, if you prefer. It appears to have been published in the IEEE proceedings for their 20th Computer Security Foundations Symposium which happens to have taken place in Venice, 6th-8th July this year. It could all just be a bit of an in-joke.

However, there are some really interesting ideas in here.

The election of the Doge was – in modern terms – quite absurd. It consisted of 10 rounds of voting, and at the beginning the entire electorate (the Grand Council of oligarchs who were all men over 30) was eligible. Each round was alternately a random lot draw, and then an election. There is an outline of the process given in the paper, and you can see how long it must have taken to elect anybody.

Where the authors (Miranda Mowbray and Dieter Gollman) take it is to show that there are some qualities it would be sensible to consider when designing computer-based election procedures. Specifically they argue that consensus in asynchronous systems, recovery after network partitioning or indeed any scenario where a ‘lead’ has to be taken by some node might be all processes that benefit from such a system. Whilst absurd to us now, it has the virtues of stability and resilience to ‘gaming’ or corruption.

There are some real gems in here as they draw parallels between modern day computer security and this ancient electoral system. Part of the protocol required for a random ballot to ensure that the drawing was fair, was that the person doing the draw would be selected as “the first boy seen after prayer’s at St. Marks” by a particular member of the Council. Mowbray and Gollman describe releasing a young boy into the square at just the right time as a “protocol attack”. They go onto describe the protocol’s arduous and drawn out procedure as “security theatre” – something that anybody who has looked at recent anti-terror legislation is all too familiar with.

They go onto propose a slightly simpler protocol that could be used by computer systems and I’m left with a mind whirring with possible applications. This is the kind of paper that makes me wish I’d got the main Vagueware application online as I can suddenly find myself thinking of applications in search, auctions, community building and more.

This is what I mean when I talk about innovation in software.

Real innovation in this space is not about taking something you’ve seen on the Web and doing it slightly differently like thousands of others. It’s about taking a piece of politics, art, theatre, humanity, and finding something in it – a tiny piece of inspiration – that gives you an idea of how to make software better.

Anyway, Seth Godin (who I still read – and encourage everybody else to) pointed me to one of Hugh’s recent articles about Open Source. An excerpt:

I know very little about software, so my hunch is that the reason Microsoft is able to make money, is simply that running a large business with 2000 people on the payroll requires very different ways of going about it, than just hacking together something in your garage. Open Source may be free [at least at first], but how well does it scale? How well does Open Source currently meet the needs of shareholders and CEOs?

Oh boy. Where to start?

Seth is right that the question he’s asking is part of the problem. Microsoft writes software to keep shareholders and CEOs happy, but in the process forgets the users. Users’ interests are what software should be about, but they are nearly always the last people to get heard.

The people paying for the software, the people who need to ensure the hardware is in place, the people who need to maintain it and support it – they’re the people who Microsoft write for, and their interests are not completely aligned with those of users. Typically in a company with 500 employees, there might be one head of IT making software decisions for the entire business – that’s the guy MS write for, and he has very different priorities to the guys working in sales down the corridor.

As a result users suffer, IT departments take lazy choices (remember the line “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”? It was true for a long time, and true for Microsoft right now), and everybody loses. Those of us who are took the early-adopter curve a few years back and jumped into open source did so because it gave us flexibility, we could get more code for less money, but more importantly it allowed us to engage in a culture of DIY software. It’s now moving as a community and concentrating on mass market appeal, so the code is consumer-ready, but all given away for free.

If it’s given away for free does that mean it’s impossible to invest in open source? That you can’t run a business off it? Well, I’m going to be betting my own business on open source so I obviously have an answer to that myself, and the answer to me is clear: it’s possible to quickly build a much larger software business from nothing by going open source than it is to quickly build a software business from nothing by going closed source.

For starters, my users (when they get the code) will know that if my business goes under, they’re not stuck with proprietary code that they can’t get their data out of. In addition, they can tailor that code for their own weird esoteric needs if they should find need rather than just accepting what I say is good for them – they can never do that with closed source. These two factors alone make open source a no-brainer for customers. Everything I can do to make my software a no-brainer works to my advantage in getting my software used.

Critically though, there is another reason why it’s a no-brainer for me as the guy running the business. It seems counter-intuitive to give stuff away for free, but my problem isn’t going to be getting people to hand over money once they’ve tried the software – my problem is getting them to try my software in the first place. It’s a bit like Cory Doctorow’s justification for giving away his work – his problem wasn’t getting paid for his work, his problem was being ignored entirely in the first place. I have the same problem – software marketing is like books or film in that its real success is determined not by SKUs but by audience.

I want to make the barrier of entry as low as possible for trying my code. I don’t want to give them crippled versions of software, I don’t want to spend time writing anti-cracking routines and making potential customers get trial license keys just to see if I’ve got something that’s useful for them – I want them to be able to use the software within seconds, for it to sell itself through functionality and usage, and then let them use it how they want.

If they want support, maintenance, customisation, training, hosting, whatever, they’re going to need to pay me to provide it. That’s where I make my money. This is a business model full of pitfalls however it seems to work just fine for Redhat and MySQL amongst others.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to be a Microsoft shareholder these days: because Microsoft has to write software with shareholder interests in mind, ironically they’re going to end up losing money in the next ten years. Hugh doesn’t see that, but that’s because he hasn’t been a developer who has seen the difference between a requirements meeting with a CEO/FD paying for development, and the requirements meeting you have with the people who will use the system day in, day out – if he had, he’d realise how much of a spanking Microsoft, Google and Oracle are about to take.

If he wants to see the difference from a user’s perspective himself, perhaps Hugh should grab an Ubuntu CD. I actually think he’d rather like Scoble’s old job though, hence the “change the World or go home” pictures directed to Microsoft’s staff and the constant love he’s giving them, so he won’t be seen in public with anything but Billware right now. It’s amazing what self-interest does to blind you to the practical realities of modern business, eh? I realise that those who think open source is a mad business model will say that about me, but meh, c’est la vie.