Innovation in Software

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.