Californian missions

In the light of UK Trade & Investment's recent engagement with the digital media industry (involving Chinwag, which is holding a UKTI Bloggers Brunch this Monday), and UKTI's planned Web Mission 2008 to San Francisco later this month (reported in TechCrunch UK), I was reminded of related missions organised by the DTI Global Watch Service, which has now closed and had its 'assets' merged into the Knowledge Transfer Networks service.

In 2004 the Global Watch Service organised a West Coast trip to look into 'Innovation through People Centred Design', taking a number of researchers and designers, including Rachel Jones of Instrata and Dan Hill who was then at the BBC. See the summary document [currently not available due to server problems]. A report-back event entitled 'Innovation through People Centred Design: Lessons for the UK' was organised by the Design Council in December 2004. I also programmed an Experience Design event entitled 'The Future of User-Centred Technology Design' in January 2005 reflecting on the findings, with Rachel and Dan among the presenters. See Dan Hill's reflections, and a report on the event in Usability News. A related initiative was the Design Council/HEFCE fact finding visit to the US, building on the Cox Review of Creativity in Business. See the (rather good) Cox US Mission blog (report lost online) and the corresponding Cox European Mission blog.

A note of caution with respect to the UKTI Mission: the UK has at various times looked to Silicon Valley with admiration and envy -- as the labels Silicon Fen and Silicon Glen attest -- and this admiration is being revived. NESTA recently hosted the event How Innovation Happens In Silicon Valley, bringing together various Valley luminaries brought over for a UK tour, as well as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne MP, during which I questioned the appropriateness of the lessons people tend to draw by comparison. I noted the unique role of film industry and the US military in under-writing Silicon Valley R&D and industry. This began in the 1930s in the case of the film industry (one of H-P's first clients was Disney), and the Second World War in the case of the military (the Pacific War was armed and fought from California). I also noted the size of internal market for Silicon Valley companies, and the scale of their international ambitions. (For instance, H-P established trade relations with China in the 1970s.) More generally, the sense of ambition evident in post-War America, especially around the space race (which also fueled West Coast R&D and the early semi-conductor industry). Britain's prevailing pessimistic disposition towards progress certainly doesn't compare favourably.

Comments

[Sam Michel]

Interesting post, Nico. I agree that it's easy to get swept up in chasing the illusion of easy-street in Silicon Valley.

From the research (http://www.chinwag.com/ukti/survey) we worked on for UKTI, the US is still the main market that companies are eyeing up, but both India and China are also very high on the list.

[Nico Macdonald]

Yes, the model of making connections or exporting to other markets is different from trying to emulate those markets/environments at home. Though one does then come back to the question of why there isn't a British Google, etc, that UK companies could be dealing with here. (Not that this is necessarily the right question to ask.)

[Sam Michel]

Would we better looking at other countries outside the US for models instead?

Are there lessons to be learnt from China, India or Israel on how they've developed their tech sectors and innovations? Perhaps they're better models than looking at the US?

[Nico Macdonald]

Good point. My instinct is that a key factor in India is a general cultural enthusiasm for invention and progress. This is probably a key factor in China too – and the Chinese authorities need to ensure continued economic development in order to retain the fealty of the (urban) population. On the scientific end of the tech sector, the Demos Atlas of Ideas project on the 'new geography of science' might provide some insights.