Procrastination ensured that I am only now recording my thoughts about ”The Cult of the Amateur: how today’s internet is killing our culture” but better late than never and coincidentally topical given one of the themes for  this year’s ‘Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford’ – Schumpeter’s Creative Destruction. ‘Cult of the Amateur’ is a punchy 2007 book by journalistic commentator, Andrew Keen;  it essentially represented the first bucket of cold water enthusiastically poured over the euphoria which once engulfed the world of on line social media and social networking (the recession represented the second bucket of ice cold water!)

The book was a welcome antidote to the fevered hype surrounding the very Silicon Valley invention – user generated content, it challenged the democratisation of the on line media platforms which had spurred the crowds to storm the palace gates. It criticized the unwashed masses – the ‘amateur’ musicians, journalists, literary authors and film makers, globally broadcasting their work using web technologies (to swamp the internet.)

‘…when ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule?’

Also explored is the web’s creative destruction of the advertising models supporting newspapers and magazines;  lamenting the deceleration of the newspaper industry, Keen blames Craigslist and quotes Adam Smith. Regarding, the digital piracy-led annihilation of the music industry, Keen’s polemic or rant (depending on your perspective…) means that he forgets the giant steps of the 20th century’s music industry - the cultural revolutions of jazz, blues, soul, rock, heavy metal, punk, hip hop, house, techno - genres which challenged the middle-of-the-road anti-innovation record label bosses:

‘Say good-bye to today’s experts and cultural gatekeepers – our reporters, news anchors, editors, music companies, and Hollywood movie studios.’

Andrew rightly criticizes the unadulterated praise heaped on the ‘wisdom of crowds’ concept famously epitomised by Wikipedia, and in a later 2008 discussion at the Oxford Internet Institute he interestingly suggests that universities act as gatekeepers for on line encyclopaedic resources.

You are probably wondering about the relevance of this 2007 book in 2010 and here goes:

- Today, the AOL acquired-Bebo once the healthy posterchild of the UK web 2.0 landscape, optimistically purchased for $850M/£550 with post tax profits of £2.6M, is now due for a sell-off or closure after startling yoy financial losses of £1M and declines in traffic

-  The News International acquired-Myspace is struggling against the tide. Its original CEO and founder duo are no longer with Myspace and the subsequently appointed CEO has moved on…meanwhile another Rupert Murdoch-owned  media vehicle, Timesonline.com announced the introduction of paywalls for June 2010.

- Friends Reunited was subsequently sold for £25M after being purchased for £175M

- And Facebook is regularly embroiled in news stories around societal breakdown and crime

The good news is that the professional social network, LinkedIn is doing better than ever in the face of a job market downturn

The bad news is the overall absence of innovative and commercially workable business models beyond subscription paywalls for on line social media and social networks.

And, the newspaper and music industries are still in a state of flux – cheering thoughts.

www.siliconvalleyoxford.com

Key Theme: 10 Years

Reflecting on the last 10 years, and looking forwards to the next 10 years of innovations in technology, business models, investing and the business environment, Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford 2010 shall explore the disruptive technologies and business innovations of the past 10 years, reflecting on the demise of old industries, old economic models and old perspectives.

Sub-theme 1: Schumpeter’s Creative Destruction

The advancement of the Internet is arguably the greatest computer science innovation. Its overwhelmingly pervasive power has led to the disruption of established knowledge and cultural industries, sectors which represent the core of our very existence in terms of recording, reporting, reflecting and questioning our society and its culture.

Sub-theme 2: Could Silicon Valley exist anywhere in the world?

The tenth anniversary provides an opportunity to ask whether Silicon Valley could evolve into a generic term or metaphor for an entrepreneurial cluster anywhere in the world. What is the secret of Silicon Valley? Why has Europe never managed to create an equivalent (note that Oxfordshire is recognised as one of the most successful entrepreneurial ecosystems in Europe.) At SVCO 08, investor, Saul Klein questioned whether the richness of European history, its architecture and long established institutions present an impediment. Contrast with Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv. How does national culture, history, geography and policies impact or fuel the formation of entrepreneurial clusters? Is the next Silicon Valley likely to be in Shanghai or the already burgeoning Hyderabad or Bangalore?

After our museum tour, Mike Malone arranged for us trekkers to meet up with Ramu Sunkara, CEO and co-founder of Qik. Malone describes Qik as “the next Twitter” and he’s not alone as bloggers and tech journalists everywhere know that the Qik’s live mobile video streaming service is taking off around the globe. I also dig the fact that Ramu is an ex-Oracle employee since I too spent several years working for a software giant (SAP). The experience one acquires from working at a leading software company can often provide a more well-rounded business acumen which is something that certainly comes in handy when launching your own venture. As for the Qik service, I have yet to get it working on my Blackberry but will update my Qik channel as soon as it is.

Our final stop of the day was to see LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. <insert more LinkedIn content here>

<insert final thoughts here>

Based on earlier work focusing on technology spin-outs in the Oxfordshire region she currently contributes to filling this identified gap through a study which analyses spin-out activity in Oxfordshire and London based institutions since 1965. Highlighting that data collection is problematic, often due to underreporting, she comes to the conclusion that the London region is similar to Oxfordshire in terms of spin-off numbers. However, Oxfordshire spin-outs employ more people and turnover is far higher (£1bn +). This raises important questions regarding the implications such long-term studies might have on government policies for the development of business ecologies. Does the London region provide an adequately supportive and networked environment to nurture university-related companies? It also remains to be seen what long-term effects business schools and other business support schemes have on the entrepreneurial “spirit” and the development of a particular region.

For further information please consult:
H. Lawton-Smith, K. Ho, Measuring the performance of Oxford University, Oxford Brookes University and the government laboratories’ spin-off companies in: Research Policy 35 (2006), pp.1554-1568

For Helen Lawton-Smith’s homepage, please click here.

The Oxford Social Media Conference organised by the University’s Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Internet Institute, will look back at the evolution of blogs and other social media to give a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which such tools have or have not made a difference at the social, political and economic level. In addition, speakers drawn from academia, industry and the media will be asked to look forward to identify the trends and developments which will mostly shape our experience of these technologies in the future.

Date: September 18th 2009
Time: 9:00 – 17.30
Location: Saïd Business School
To register your interest: events@oii.ox.ac.uk

The Organisers: Oxford Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and The Oxford Internet Institute

For further information on speakers please click here

“I distinguish between having an MBA and being an MBA. Never be an MBA.”  – Joe DiNucci

After breakfast, we headed to the world’s hottest startup on earth – Twitter.  When we arrived at their office, we were greeted by founder Biz Stone (@Biz) and many others from the Twitter family including Oxford MBA alumni Santosh Jayaram (@santojay) who now runs Twitter’s operations.  It was interesting to hear Biz explain how Twitter was born but what really caught my attention was their strong focus on value creation through its real-time search.  For most entrepreneurs, I think the passion for creating value is simply part of their DNA.  However, when your product is experiencing phenomenal growth rates and non-stop media coverage like Twitter, it’s morally excellent to see the entrepreneurs still incredibly focused on value creation rather than cashing in their $250M+ chips to the Google’s of the world. 

When I first signed up for a Twitter account last year, I didn’t really “get it”.  Fortunately a few experienced Twitter users gave me some pointers which really helped.  I also downloaded a few third party Twitter apps like TweetDeck which greatly increase my usage.  However, the most valuable thing I find about Twitter is not how minimalist communication tools promote creativity (although that’s cool too) but rather how Twitter’s ecosystem is actually changing lives for the better.  And If Twitter turns out to be just another fad?  Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.            

Follow me on Twitter @nancyvega.

p.s. I was tempted to run my start-up idea through YouNoodle’s predictor but decided against.  For now, ignorance is bliss.     

After YouNoodle, we headed over to Y Combinator to meet up with Paul Graham.  The Y Combinator model is unique in that entrepreneurs are not required to submit a business plan in order to apply for funding.  In fact, what’s great about Y Combinator’s model is that not only do they provide seed money to help the founders get started, they also provide mentorship thereby serving as a “one-stop shop” incubator for entrepreneurs.  And let’s face it, if you have the chance to learn from someone like Paul who’s already ‘been there, done that (and did it well)’, then giving up 2-10% equity in your startup is actually a pretty good deal.  And of course Paul’s 1-hour mentorship session to us trekkers was equally valuable in that he reminded us about the importance of team dynamics – especially when it comes to selecting your co-founder(s).   It’s funny how sometimes the most obvious lessons are the ones we need reminding of the most.

The entire SVCO event however goes by faster than the speed of light.  The following day I kept thinking to myself, “That’s it?  It’s over already?”  If you’re a passionate, budding entrepreneur like me, the answer is no.  Less than a week after the SVCO dust had settled, Jon (my co-chair) and I were already exchanging emails titled ‘Oxford Comes to Silicon Valley’.  

After five long months of planning a trek in-between (and often times during) academic lectures and assignments, here we are in Silicon Valley getting ready to meet with some of the most successful and interesting entrepreneurs on this planet.  Just three words come to mind… BRING IT ON.        

A devotion to the obsessive pursuit of knowledge within a narrow and sharply defined area is one way to view academic research endeavours; in ‘The Bottom Billion’ Paul Collier describes research as an intense but very narrow beam of light. From my perspective the ‘who, what, when, where, why and how’ of the medical, life and physical sciences is clear cut. The ‘why and how’ in terms of certain aspects of the social sciences is less accessible to me, providing me with new and interesting challenges and novel perspectives. As the Oxford Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (OxCEI) grows its research base from its origins as a practical entrepreneurship centre, I no longer want to only understand the ‘who’ and ‘what’ in terms of business school ’social sciences’ research; ‘how’ and more importantly ‘why’ has become my pre-occupation.

 Anthropologist, Catherine Dolan, Said Business School Lecturer in Marketing presented her research around ‘Avon in Africa: Poverty Reduction through Entrepreneurship’ at a forum organised by our Centre to showcase and network entrepreneurship and innovation researchers across the University of Oxford. In line with CK Prahalad’s innovative and provocative ’bottom of the pyramid’ ethos, Avon has expanded its network of ‘Avon ladies’ to South Africa. The role of the Avon sales rep, once the preserve of middle class suburban house wives across the UK and US (keen to enhance their housekeeping budgets) is now globalised and available to the homemakers of the emerging markets! Dolan gave an account of the considerable empowerment felt by South African Avon sales representatives selling cosmetics: lipsticks, perfumes, make up and so on for Avon on a commission-only basis. Dolan informed that involvement with Avon, as sales representatives, provides a small but important number of black South African women with financial empowerment, self esteem and independence. The UN confirms in various reports that an empowered woman leads to a better quality of life, an empowered household and essentially (or arguably) poverty reduction; the prospect of Avon expanding into Africa, viewing the continent as a potential market, is commendable.

Dr Dolan referred to the ‘Avon ladies’ as ‘entrepreneurs’ and positioned her (and Dr Linda Scott’s) research as one perspective on ‘Women’s Entrepreneurship in Africa’ – this leaves me with a number questions. From a descriptive perspective, the South African women she describes are indeed ‘entrepreneurs.’ The African entrepreneur, Mo Ibrahim, founder of Cel-tel controversially pushed the boundaries further at the 2006 Skoll World Forum for Social Entrepreneurship by arguing that entrepreneurial character traits are an inherent part of the African mindset, (he also unequivocally stated that he isn’t a ’social’ entrepreneur and that rather, he is an entrepreneur who founded a company in Africa.) I agree on both counts, just visit the food markets of Accra or Lagos and you will see women ‘entrepreneurs’ everywhere – from a descriptive perspective – objectively they are traders or business women. My grandmother, fluent in five West African languages: Ashanti Twi, Ewe, Ga, Hausa and English, before reaching her current ripe old age was an entrepreneurial market trader and the prospect of access to micro finance or supplementary commission-based sales income would have enabled her to flourish realizing her entrepreneurial instincts. I applaud the use of the word ‘entrepreneur’ to describe entrepreneurial or enterprising Avon cosmetics sales representatives, but…I worry when it is used in an academic setting (where, I gather, precise definitions and semantics are ever so important.) I worry about its use in any arena where an objective definition of the ‘entrepreneur’ could be useful. I think that the women at the centre of the Avon study are enterprising sales women, entrepreneurial women traders and indeed cosmetics representatives working on a commission-only basis. Are they entrepreneurs? I think not. Are they intrapreneurs? I doubt working for Avon extends to this remit.

For me, entrepreneurship pushes the boundaries and leads to innovation, sustainable wealth creation and jobs; it impacts positively (one hopes) on economies spanning the local, regional or national levels and impacts beyond micro-level improvements in the finances of an individual.  I became personally inspired to enter university technology transfer (and now knowledge transfer) ten years ago because the thought of wealth creation – creating wealth by transferring the fruits of university research to the public domain fascinated me – my mantra being, ’spread the intellect around as widely as possible’ harnessing the markets, if necessary.

Google’s entrepreneur-in-residence, Harvard graduate and woman entrepreneur, Monique Maddy (of Liberian descent) founded a telecommunications company in Tanzania in 1993. Maddy’s entrepreneurial African venture is depicted in a Harvard Business School case study. Nubian Sudanese and Egyptian-born Mo Ibrahim, metaphorically described as the godfather of Africa’s mobile phone industry, founded Cel-tel in 1998. The venture has operations across Africa including Zambia, Chad, Niger, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. Cel-tel’s innovation epitomises the technology concept of leap frogging the 20^th century straight into the 21^st Century. Bypassing the slow development of landlines in Africa, Cel-tel noted the lack of basic telephone infrastructure and they grasped a market opportunity. Former academic, Dr Ibrahim made more than £363M when Cel-tel was sold to a Kuwaiti company; he has given away more than £57M for African philanthropic causes and donated another £64M for the establishment of a fund to invest responsibly in the continent. He is the founder of the African leadership prize to reward good governance and his observations reflect a very African champion: “Clearly there is a big gap between perception and reality when it comes to Africa…When you ask people what they think of Africa, they think Aids, genocide, disasters, famine. Yes, Africa has its fair share of tragedies. But Africa has 53 countries. There are really peaceful parts of the continent; there are quite reasonable governments in many countries.”

The Africa enthusiast, Mark Davies, moved to Ghana in order to recapture the excitement of the frontier days of Silicon Alley (Metrobeat) and London’s 1990s dotcom boom (co-founder of First Tuesday.) He founded sub-Saharan Africa’s largest technology centre, BusyInternet, a social investment which has evolved into Africa’s largest privately-held technology centre and incubator for SMEs. The centre, based in Accra, was established as a cluster concept to bring together entrepreneurs in ICT-enabled businesses to share ideas, new technologies and market opportunities. Subsequently, he has founded a couple of software houses – and the management teams and techies are all West African software developers. Aside from Mark’s entrepreneurial pursuits, he has given lectures and practical classes at a major university in Ghana where Ghanaian student computer scientists determined to experiment, resort to hand written code due to a lack of computers. The supply-led nature of university research means that we will infrequently hear about these aspects of African entrepreneurship and innovation in an academic forum.

(Note: when I refer to individual entrepreneurs, I am actually referring to their brilliant management and technical teams – the employees as well as the founding individual, duo or team…I agree with the entrepreneurs who emphasise that entrepreneurship is far from being a heroic endeavour by a single individual. According to Jonathan Bond of Actis Investments, beyond Ibrahim, Cel-tel created a number of African millionaires – I very much hope that they will invest in the next wave of innovative African entrepreneurs)

A couple of weeks ago, I met with a group of Said Business School African MBA students planning an Africa Business Conference; an Executive Education student of Nigerian descent who simultaneously works for Goldman Sachs also joined the meeting. The Africa Business theme was originally and only recently pioneered in the Said Business School in 2006 at a conference entitled ‘Demystifying the African Economy’ led by the student society, Oxford Entrepreneurs and championed by the Oxford Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The African MBA students (former accountants, investment professionals and scientists) are keen to inform their peers, their academic lecturers and the wider university about investment and general business opportunities in Africa. The Goldman Sachs Executive Education student wanted to stage an infrastructure conference. Like the previous anti and post colonial generations who studied overseas, they had high hopes and ambitions and were keen to contribute to making Africa (the poorest continent) a region to be reckoned with: unlike previous generations of African overseas students who were political thinkers and activists, today’s aspiring African students are business practitioners or investment professionals consolidating their knowledge at top flight business schools. They note the universal pre-occupation with micro finance and micro-pursuits, and with urgency choose to focus their interests on the venture capital void experienced by African-based small and medium sized enterprises, and further along the scale private equity and infrastructure funding for roads, water, energy and telecoms.

In contrast, some of the Africa-linked research interests of the PhD or Dphil community remains naturally esoteric and, maybe, sometimes arguably a little exotic. Worryingly, bottom of the pyramid sales projects, micro-financial endeavours and social enterprises are overwhelmingly positioned as offering ‘development’ solutions by a number of players for the African continent when the trajectory of the Asian economic tigers proves otherwise.