Damien Mulley asks do we need an environment more like Silicon Valley here in Ireland and lists the main factors in success from Paul Graham's controversial keynote at XTech. But nowhere do I see a mention of "Geek Dinners". I'm serious! This is one aspect of Valley culture that I think is seriously underestimated.
Look, I'm more a nerd than a geek (geeks are sociable nerds, right?), I don't have the best people skills but after I started blogging and soon started connecting with a raft of great people I quickly learned the magic and importance of networking. The old adage "It's not what you know but who you know" came sharply into focus for the first time in my life. The number of doors that have opened and continue to open as a result of blogging and the few geek dinners I've attended continues to astound me. In fact I'm currently exploring a new business idea with a programmer I met at one such event.
When John Collins introduced Fergus Burns of Nooked at the Web2Ireland conference a few weeks ago he called him the consummate networker. And in the few times I've met Fergus it was indeed apparent that he seems to know everyone who's anyone on the Web 2.0 scene on both sides of the pond. I have the greatest of admiration for that kind of networking and the recent selection of Nooked for the Innovate! Showcase can at least be in part attributed to Fergus' restless jetsetting (besides the fact that they have damn great technology). We need much more of that can-do, 'press the flesh' attitude among Irish entrepreneurs.
The likes of Scoble, Arrington, and Winer seem to be at a networking BBQ or geek dinner every other night of the week. Its the informality of it all that amazes me. These guys just call around to each others houses like lifelong buddies with no great fuss, no airs and graces. The food is just an excuse to talk tech. What a wonderful culture. Can you imagine the conversations they have? The informal brainstorming? There must be a constant stream of inspiration. You'd probably get a dozen different business ideas per hour. What I wouldn't give to see that replicated in Ireland.
If We Only Had Old Ireland Over Here (sentimental Irish-Australian folk song)
I was dreamin' of old Ireland and Killarneys lakes and dells
I was dreamin' of the shamrock, and the dear old Shandon Bells
When my reverie suggested in a vision bright and clear
All the strange things that would happen
If we had old Ireland here
If We Only Had The Valley Over Here (sentimental Irish-Geek folk song)
I was dreamin' of the Valley and the Googles and the Dells*
I was dreamin' of the poppy**, and dear old Standford Bells
When my reverie suggested in a vision bright and clear
All the great things that would happen
If we had the Valley over here
*I invoke my right to artistic license in relocating Dell and ignoring the fact both Google and Dell have European centers in Ireland. How bloodly inconvenient at this time of great emotional stress.
** The Golden Poppy of course! ;-)
I think we're headed in the right direction because many recent tech success stories can cite their genesis in blogging. Think "Blogger Meetup" or "Blogger Dinners" and you have the Geek Dinner infrastructure percolating already in Ireland.
Posted by: Bernie Goldbach | May 19, 2006 at 12:58 PM
OMGWTFBBQ!
Posted by: Justin Mason | May 19, 2006 at 01:18 PM
Adding to what Bernie says, we're on the way and I think your weekly Skypecasts are another good method of networking.
Posted by: Damien Mulley | May 19, 2006 at 01:35 PM
Wow. Damien's post has really struck a chord with me! Especially this quote:
"People in the Bay Area are optimistic about technology to the point of being starry-eyed and they possess a completely unabashed sense of ambition. In the years since I moved to London, I’ve felt a palpable cynicism about technology and about ambition: anyone who says anything grandiose about technology and what you might do with it is apt to be greeted with eye-rolling and pedantic, picky objections."
That is so familiar. I'm about to do my finals in a couple of weeks and finish up college for good. The inevitable "what are you doing next?" questions are cropping up amongst the class. But more often the question is "where are you going to work?" The "I'm going to work for myself ... start a few little web businesses" reply just doesn't sit well with some folk. Their reactions are vague and confused and they are often underwhelmed. And these are young, bright computer scientists! I wonder are people of my generation inheriting this from their parents (who had to struggle through the 70s and 80s being grateful for every second they were in a pensionable job)? Maybe our kids will beat this and have an inherent ambition in the new Ireland.
I think Ireland has many things on that list, but a few, I think, we have not:
4. "High quality universities" (Debatable; they're good but not comparable to the big American colleges.)
6. "Attitudes that don’t associate ‘working’ with being employed"
8. "Huge domestic market"
9. "High levels of funding"
10. "People comfortable with career switching"
But for the few ambitious, "starry-eyed" geeks amongst us, effective communication, tight networking and platforms for getting excited about the web are crucial. That's why I think initiatives like your Skypecast conferences are so important. But there needs to be greater awareness too. There are a whole lot more of us out there than those that would visit this blog, for example. How do you reach them?
Posted by: Eoghan McCabe | May 19, 2006 at 03:05 PM
I think the gist of PG's argument is ...
geeks + rich-people = silicon-valley
Ireland has an abundance of geeks/talent but try getting geeks and rich-people together in the same room.
Ok - it happened at the recent web2.0 event in the Helix but I didn't see much informal chatter between the two groups.
Irish VC thinks: "so that's what a geek looks like..."
Irish geek thinks: "so that's what a VC looks like..."
Geeks mixing amongst themselves is one thing - what we really need is a particle collider to get Irish Geeks and Irish Rich people (god knows there seems to be enough of them) to inhabit the same space for more than a few hours.
Posted by: walter | May 19, 2006 at 03:35 PM
Great points lads, thanks.
Eoghan, what a pity to hear that so little has changed in the 10 years since I left college. Maybe we'll have to wait for our GRAND children to develop a true culture of entrepreneurship. I applaud you for bucking the trend!
And you're right - as much as the blogosphere is tentatively burrowing its way into the mainstream, its got a long way to go. We definitely need to build a wider awareness if we ever hope to achieve a thriving grassroots culture of informal meetups.
Posted by: James Corbett | May 19, 2006 at 04:03 PM
Let's make the weekly Skypecasts morph into an open conference call supported with HEANET virtual conference space. That way people could couple into the situation while underway on mobile. And if the model works, techies could use the system to avoid the hectic Dublin commute for meaningless F2F conference time.
Posted by: Bernie Goldbach | May 20, 2006 at 09:41 AM
Okay....so where we do we go from here.
Right. I know I'm in rainy Belfast but I'm going to see if I can start "geek meets" in Belfast. Can't be that hard can it?
Posted by: MJ | May 20, 2006 at 12:03 PM
"How to Kick Silicon Valley's Butt" by Guy Kawasaki (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/06/how_to_kick_sil.html)
Posted by: Eoghan McCabe | June 07, 2006 at 01:18 PM