Judeumeh's Blog

On Tuesday evening, I had the distinctly heady experience of speaking to an audience of some 100 Entrepreneurs, Investors and Service Providers in an event to “Celebrate the 10th Anniversary of UK’s Internet Industry”. This informal event, organised by the eponymous FirstTuesday.org, consisted of three brief panel discussions (focusing on the past, present and future of the Internet), and interspersed with severe bouts of furious networking (the primary goal of the event) between attendees. The representative panel members included: Peter Whitehead (Moderator and FT Digital Business Editor); Sean Phelan (Entrepreneur and founder of Multimap); Julie Meyer (Investor and founder of FirstTuesday & Ariadne Capital); and yours truly (Service Provider and Capgemini Consultant).

Some key take-outs from the event include:

1. Capping the Crunch on Investment – With potentially less money available, entrepreneurs and start-ups must be ready to ‘bootstrap’ their own business development in order to ride out the current dire economic situation, and to prove the viability and resilience of their business models

2. Successful entrepreneurs never say die – The next wave of successful Internet businesses start-ups will be the ones that can adapt and survive even in adversity (such as in the post ‘dotcom bubble’ era).

3. Technology won’t stop evolving – from the static / info-centric Web1.0, to the hyper-collaborative web2.0 and potentially contextual / dynamic WebN.0; it seems that technology-enabled change is definitely here to stay, therefore we (i.e. the entrepreneurs, investors and service providers) must evolve our models accordingly

4. The role of service providers – In my opinion, service providers should lead the way in enabling and supporting their client’s entrepreneurial efforts and business transformation goals based on a clear vision and broad industry experience / expertise. Our approach might include:

• The TechnoVision 2012 – This concept describes how and why service providers must have a comprehensive perspective on the evolution of technology, as well as its likely impact on their client’s business and the way they work. This is supported by initiatives like RAIN (RApid INnovation), RDV (Rapid Design & Visualisation) and the ASE (Accelerated Solutions Environment)
• Thought leadership – Capgemini’s CTOs and subject matter experts have become authors, and evangelists for change, withseveral books published on various forward looking and game changing topics like: Mashups, Mesh Collaboration, 21st Century Business & IT Communication, Wealth Management and The World Beyond DRM.

The question then remains as to whether service providers like Capgemini, and other similar organisations, should invest time and effort in supporting entrepreneurs and start-ups, and if so what would be the best way to go about it (in light of lessons learnt from the ‘dotcom era’)?

There is no easy answer other than to highlight the fact that; given the harsh economic realities of a changing global business environment, it might be prudent or even vital for all segments of developed economies to invest more resources towards realising a coherent framework for a truly global digital economy, based on a more evolved concept and interpretation of intellectual property rights. Basically, not everything will be free, open source, or ad-funded in tomorrow’s digital economy, much as we might wish it to be so, and I welcome any observations to the contrary.

In conclusion, I thought this event was an excellent networking forum for entrepreneurs, investors and other Internet / start-up cognoscenti in attendance; and I also met a couple of attendees with really interesting ideas which I can’t reveal here on pain of discomgooglation (yes, it is a word). I would gladly recommend it.

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Note: Originally posted on Capgemini’s Technology blog at: http://www.capgemini.com/technology-blog/2008/10/