History in the making
Simply put, this project is about building a world-class technological pole not unlike Silicon Valley (hence the name of this blog). Although it might sound silly at first, we have to consider the massive amount of historical informations already available. After all, didn’t Dublin (Ireland), Bangalore (India), Dalian (China), Taipei (Taiwan) and Seoul (South Korea) succeed to reproduce the phenomenon in record time and in spite of a late start? I was recently hired to design and execute a project that would have the same effects on Canada and I am now more than happy to share my adventure with you as we go along.
This blog is meant to document the project in whole, no matter how good it goes or how bad it fails. With your help and your comments, I feel well prepared and ready to change the face of the world. This really IS history in the making and a unique chance for anyone reading this to contribute to something that will be remembered for a long time. You are my mentors, I am counting on you. The blog is also a draft for a book that I plan to release when it makes sense. So, if you are actively participating (and upon your approval), you might end up featured as an expert in its pages.
Why in the world would anybody want to build another Silicon Valley?
According to Napoleon, concentration and mobility are the two most important elements to win a war. The “valley” helps the concentration of expertise while the Internet provides the mobility.
The concentration
If you haven’t lived on another planet for the last 12 months and are in the IT field like me, you are aware that there is going to be a massive shortage of manpower in our industry. In fact, it is already started: there are more job offers right now than graduates to fill them. Because of the Y2K bug, of the exploded technology bubble and of the baby-boomers retreating, the inscriptions in Information Technology programs are down by 64% in many schools around the U.S.. Nowadays, the IT industry is probably the fastest there is as it empowers each and every other fields. With outsourcing to other poles abroad and businesses recruiting more than 60% of their specialists oversea, the future doesn’t look too bright. Own the manpower now and you will control the future of IT. This is the main reason why we still need Silicon Valleys in America.
The mobility
For many years, I focused on building eCommerce solutions. I would manage my business and get a lot of things done using the Internet without ever realizing that: “Work is not a place anymore, it is the thing that you do”. When I heard these words from Mr. Richard Cabana (who was with Novell at the time), it struck me like lightning! Did he mean that I could move to a beautiful remote place, sit in the sun between my house and my garden with a laptop on the knees and make an awful lot of money? What would it mean if everybody in a poor region did the same? What if they also adopted a “buy local” attitude at the same time? They would most certainly get richer real quick. The Internet flattens the world and changes the dynamics.
How this project came to be
Like many great things, it started by sheer coincidence. Back in October 2007, Mr. Roger Laberge (my boss at the time and now a valued partner) was offered a VIP business trip to the project location. Since he couldn’t go, he asked me if I wanted to represent him there and told me I would have to give a conference about Free Open Source Software (FOSS). Aside from that, we had absolutely no clue whatsoever about what they were expecting from us. For a week, confident that they didn’t even know what FOSS was, I have asked myself: “What in the world will I tell them?”. Then, some day, the bulb in my head lit and I decided to build a new presentation specifically aligned with what I thought they needed.
I researched the economics and demographics of the place, read a book about its history and tried to summarize in my head what I had learned from the medias. The result was a conference called “Free economy” that would oppose FOSS to proprietary solutions and their respective local economic impact. When I arrived there, I was surprised to learn that we were invited because of the investment we were about to make in that region. Thing is, there was a misunderstanding as we had absolutely no ambition to accomplish anything whatsoever there…
I decided to go on with my presentation anyway and was glad to discover that I was right on target! As I thought, they didn’t know much about OpenSource Software but they certainly could envision its benefits. They kept telling me: “We enjoyed your conference and are ready to help you make it happen. Now just tell us about your project here”. What could I say? I had none! As their enthusiasm grew, so did my guilt. For three days, I kept looking for such a project, in vain…
The head up in the clouds
When I got back on the plane, I was still trying to find a way to make it all work. Then, as we were taking off, I looked down through the porthole and saw the peninsula from the sky for the first time. I remember thinking: “Wow, this looks like some kind of pole! What a great place to build a concentration of some sort.” Now, I don’t know if it is because I had my head up in the clouds for too long but I said to myself “Let’s migrate the whole region to Linux!” I had my project and I was so happy about it that I just had to pitch my idea right there on the plane. I shared my views with fellow passengers and they got excited as well! They also made me promise that we would stay in touch.
The feet on the ground
Now, I always had a lot of drive and if there is one thing I learned it is that ambitious ideas always get trashed by the first person you meet. So I decided to shield my theory from my imaginary foes before I shared it with too many people. I did some more research about the place and then decided to investigate how other technological poles were built. One of the first thing I did was to ask a question about it on LinkedIn.com.
In the meantime, people would call me to know if we could work together, I was offered many jobs and was invited to give more of these conferences.
I collected hundreds of articles, highlighted good bits of information and identified every key factors I could find. The bits became a digest, the digest became a strategy, the strategy a business plan and the business plan became a three hours long presentation.
For many reasons, the project and the region were almost a perfect fit.
Back on location
I did give one more conference before I was really back on location. The IT department of a nearby University wanted to know more about my “free economy” model and arranged a group for that matter. I took the opportunity to test my material in front of human beings and started to introduce the idea of a world-class technological pole. To my big surprise, there was absolutely no resistance. It was a big success.
Back on site, I met with local businesses, schools and government leaders. All were very receptive and a few days later, I was offered yet another job. This one was hard to ignore though. They would hire me to build the whole thing! I told Roger about it and thought about the move for a week. After some negociations, we agreed on December the 20th that I would start on January the 14th (so yes, as it is 10 hours away from my hometown I had to reorganize my whole life between Christmas and New Year’s Eve).
Guess this is pretty much how this project came to be.
/mn
