Sick of the service sector
Posted by Jason Wolfe in Rants, Start-up culture on July 7, 2011
by 'gwenflickr' (Flickr)
This one definitely gets filed under “rants”. It’s been something that has been bubbling under for quite a while now, but I want to get it off my chest now.
The thing is, I have a natural aversion to the bullshitting, self-proclaiming, self-obsessed narcissists that make up so much of the UK (and probably global) digital sector. I’ve worked in this area for decades now (rapidly closing in on 20 years) and alas they’ve been there almost since the very start. There does, however, seem to be an increasing glut of these folk now.
Typically they’re individuals who love to talk about stuff, but don’t really do anything. They love to critique, but don’t truly innovate. They tell others how it should be done, but with no ability to really do it for themselves. They’re, ultimately, an extension of the consultancy affliction that has dominated marketing and business in general since time immemorial.
And this is the real centre of my moaning. Not only do these people love to talk about themselves, and genuinely believe their own hype, but they skew the market with the noise they make. Compare the US and UK media with regard to digital activity. The US focusses on start-ups and product-led organisations (ranging from one-man enterprises through to Twitter, Google, Apple, etc) with news coming from sources like TechCrunch. The UK talks about the hottest agencies, most influential UX consultancies and leading designers from sources like New Media Age.
I suspect there isn’t anywhere in the UK that doesn’t have service-sector digital workers outnumbering the manufacturing-sector digital workers by at least 50 to 1. We’re obsessed with this relatively low-risk, high visibility path to mediocrity where too much time is spent on managing perceptions and not enough time on delivering results.
It may just be that these noisy self-publicists by definition attract more attention than they should, but I can’t help thinking that it is a pervasive cultural issue that reflects a weakness in our national ambitions. I can’t see that an agency is worth as much as a start-up, and I speak as someone who’s done both.
Get off your backsides, stop trying to pretend that you’re somehow digitally awesome because you work as a “social media manager for Blue Spidermonkey” and go and make something. If you were really any good you’d be building something truly awesome. As a variation on the old saying (by H.L. Mencken) might go: “Those that can — do, those that can’t — serve”.
Getting nervous
Posted by Jason Wolfe in Start-up culture on July 6, 2011
by Steiner Johnson (Flickr)
We’re getting really close to the first open release of www.legacyhub.com, and I have to say that I’m starting to feel more than a little worried. I’ve invested so much emotional energy (not to mention physical time and cash) into this idea, that I couldn’t stand for it to fail. And that makes me think that it needs to be really good before I get it out there.
GLISP
Posted by Jason Wolfe in Technology on June 15, 2011
Image by B Tal (Flickr)
I had the privilege of meeting up with a very distinguished group of data experts this week as part of closed round table. It was operated under Chatham House rules, so I can’t share much of what was actually discussed there, but I do want to talk about my own perceptions of the event and the topic itself.
Feeling isolated
Posted by Jason Wolfe in Start-up culture on May 31, 2011
Image by 'JB London' (Flickr)
Had a strange day today. It started really well with a meeting about an upcoming TEDx event I’m helping to put together. We’re aiming really high. Maybe too high. Trying to get big name speakers on a topic that I feel quite strongly about (Modern Philanthropy). Whilst discussing the event, and all the things that need to happen, it made me feel really glad that I’m not trying to pull all of this stuff together on my own. It would be a serious challenge without some of the great people I’ve gotten to know over the years helping out.
Big deep breath..
Posted by Jason Wolfe in Housekeeping, Rants on May 26, 2011
Image from 'lonely radio' on Flickr
OK, so I made a big decision about this blog. I looked at it, and I thought to myself: “I hate writing this thing. Why is that?”. And the answer was that it felt like work. And it felt very sterile. Very grey. Basically just a bit crap. No real audience (like most blogs I guess), but also no real purpose.
So I want to rebrand this thing, and turn it into something more real. No more over-thinking how what I write here fits in with a professional image. Much more (hopefully) of what you’d get if you had a real life conversation with me.
Basically I’m going to talk about what I’m doing, why I’m a bit different (I hope) and what lessons (warts and all) that I’ve learned (and am learning). I’ll try and be less reserved, more open, candid and honest. I’ll swear occasionally (hey, who wants entrepreneurs that aren’t passionate?) and I’ll try to be less “English”.
We’ll see how it goes, but whatever happens I should hopefully feel better about writing this stuff. It won’t feel like a chore. Maybe.
The idea and the execution
Posted by Jason Wolfe in Corporate life, Start-up culture on May 15, 2011
There’s a lot of talk about how ideas aren’t worth anything, and that it’s the execution that matters. I can see how some people might believe this, but I simply believe that it isn’t true. For sure, you need to act to bring the idea to life, but that doesn’t mean the idea in itself has no value (obvious I suppose).
Challenging the entrepreneur stereotype
Posted by Jason Wolfe in Start-up culture on December 1, 2010
Very quick post to confirm that I (and this blog) haven’t died. Tied up doing lots of things at the moment, and will also post the odd blog entry at http://blog.legacyhub.com which otherwise might have ended up here.
Starting another web business venture at my tender age (just approaching 40 since you ask) and at the same time as expecting a third child smacks heavily of insanity, a mid-life crisis or possibly even both. However, legacyhub is such a great opportunity that I really couldn’t pass it up. It’s been bubbling away in my head for a number of years now, and circumstances have combined to give me a real shot at building it.
Getting started
Posted by Jason Wolfe in Start-up culture on September 14, 2010
I’ve read in other blogs and Tweets from people discussing the act of starting a technology business, that there isn’t really a single moment where your own particular enterprise is born. I’d pretty much agree with that, although there are definitely some key moments when you could look back and say “that was the moment we were born”.
I recently created two of those moments, both somewhat artificially. I arranged a three day coding (and design) get together where some of the guys working on the project met each other for the first time. It had a real feel of “getting started”, and I would recommend it if you get the chance. In a way I was lucky because they were all people I’d worked with in the past (17 years working in web has given me a great set of contacts), and I had a fairly good idea that it would work out well.
It had some great spin-off benefits though that I thought I’d share.
Introducing legacyhub
Posted by Jason Wolfe in Start-up culture, Technology on September 8, 2010
The last three days have been the culmination of a lot of effort to get to the point of launching a new service. I’ve been doing some consultancy work 2 days a week for the last month and a half, hoarding enough cash to pay for a couple of fantastic young developers to build out the first working version of the product.
In three days we defined the name and logo for the concept. We also designed the obligatory T-shirt. Read the rest of this entry »
Another new path
Posted by Jason Wolfe in Start-up culture on August 17, 2010
This is a very quick post aimed at dispelling some of the silence and shedding some light on what I’ve been up to recently.
The last 2 months have been spent refining an idea, creating a pitch and securing funds and team members. I’ll post more about what this idea is and what we’re aiming to create in a later post. For now I just wanted to set the scene and say that I will be discussing the various steps we, as a startup, are going through. We’re fortunate enough to have been through these steps before, but I’m quite sure we’ll make some new mistakes (which we’ll share) and learn some new things (which we’ll also share).
Watch this space.