Change is coming...

My new website is currently in "beta testing." There will be a link to this blog from it, hopefully a bit more prominent than at present (a button from the "ABOUT" page.) Please let me know what you think. Many thanks to "Wix.com" - a great (UK) technology simplifier.

Shhh - It's Chatham House Rules

Well, the most interesting occurrence since my last post I can't really talk about! I attended the West Midlands Economic Forum where one of the Conservative MPs who had been responsible for the LEP proposal as a member of "Localis" - the think tank on localism - gave a very interesting talk. One of the attendees, vice chair of our local RDA, being scrapped under the LEP proposal, had some views on this.

And that's about as much as I can say.

Despite the flux in funding, and the uncertainty over the future of support of any kind, whether central or local, business goes on; even new businesses. One of the areas I'm currently involved in is finding "trailblazer" applications. An inventor has a technology. He knows the lucrative market, but there are regulatory or technical hurdles acting as a barrier to entry. He knows the cost, but doesn't have the money. What he needs is a "trailblazer" application; not as lucrative as his target, but with much lower entry costs, and it will mean his company is revenue generating (as opposed to pre-revenue) in a much shorter timescale, and he will have case studies showing that the technology works in real world situations. All of which means that his company is now a much more attractive proposition to potential investors, and at a much greater valuation. These trailblazer applications may not be obvious to someone who has a particular longer term goal in mind, and it's an area where a view from outside can be enormously useful, and can lead to some very fruitful collaborations.

Does Your Company Have "Affluent" Summer Holidays?

Contrary to appearances from this blog, I haven't had a long Summer holiday this year. Since the last blog post I've visited "pre-revenue" enterprises in Cambridgeshire and Wales, as well as larger firms that are aiming to do something a "bit different" in the Wirral, Swindon and Staffordshire. All have been great opportunities, as the companies concerned are very successful, or have huge potential, or both, which counters the negative comments about declining British industry that may sometimes make the news. However, one issue that I have run into is that I'm in the minority in foregoing a long Summer break. A number of the things I'm working on have had to be put on hold as the critical person, or people, are on holiday. With multiple heads required, and overlapping holidays, this dead time has stretched into a couple of months.

Of course in the past there was an easy solution, and some traditional industries still use it; the company shutdown. No choice of when you take your holiday - everyone has the same. Then it's back to work at the same time. How old fashioned. How efficient. France takes it to extremes, and applies it to the entire country. However, even companies back from shutdown still run into the same problem; the people they need to deal with in other companies are on holiday. I have heard sales teams complaining that they may as well be on holiday over all of August, as everyone else is.

It struck me that there are some similarities with the often observed phenomenon of long Summer holidays setting back children's learning, at least for those from non-affluent backgrounds. For middle class children the picture is different. A holiday diet of books and improving visits to museums, art galleries, and events (such as the recent Birmingham ArtsFest) means that they return to school with a head start on their class mates. Can this be applied to companies?

Certainly if the Summer "break" means that those in work have less to do, doesn't this provide a wonderful opportunity for all those strategic things that never get done? The market analysis, the manufacturing improvement projects, the thinking about where the company will be in 3, 5 or 10 years time, because the pace means that we can only think about the next week or month. Those sales people who find all their contacts on holiday could pool their experiences and come up with some ideas on new markets and approaches. In other words, the business equivalents to those museum and gallery trips.

All of this would mean a rethink to the holiday system, giving incentives for short, separated holidays, instead of one long break, perhaps by having a sliding scale of how many "days" holiday are counted as, according to length of consecutive break, with long holidays being more "expensive." This is a complete reversal of the standard views on work disruption; most measures of absenteeism "prefer" employees to take one long period off sick, rather than several short periods, penalising those who try to return to work before they are fully recovered.

This wouldn't fit in well with schools, which seem wedded to the long break, despite the evidence from abroad of the benefits of shorter, more frequent holidays from those countries that follow a semester system. Effectively business practices are being dictated by the school system. As a parent myself I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but when studies of the school holiday system show the negative impact it has on the progress of children, should we then inflict that on our economy, or should we investigate alternatives for both?

Changing Times

And so it came to pass that the incoming government duly decided to dispose of the dirty water that was the regional development agencies (RDAs), without bothering to remove the baby of useful assistance to regional economy. We are left with proposals for unclear "puddles" of local economic partnerships (LEPs), set up by feuding local agencies, with their exact scope and operating principles hastily derived in the face of a tight deadline. In the meantime the existing bodies have more or less shut up shop, leaving employees, suppliers, applicants and those who thought they were being assisted, in some cases through large projects which required a good deal of upfront commitment of "resource" (that's time & money) bemused and confused. Thanks to thebusinessdesk.com for their excellent reporting on the situation; I admire their reporters' fortitude. If it was me having to write about it, my desk would be awash with tears.

Still, it represents an opportunity, and it's noticeable that a number of bodies - public and private - have stepped into the breach. Some, such as Business Link, themselves have an unclear future. Another body with "mixed reviews", Business Link has insisted that rumours of its demise are exaggerated. My own canvassing has revealed a split along regional lines. Local Business Links have considerable autonomy and, along with the local West Midlands Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS-WM), the West Midlands organisation scores higher than the UK parent in terms of "user satisfaction." My own dealings with both groups have been straightforward, pleasant experiences, and I know of several cases where MAS-WM, in particular, has gone "above and beyond" in supporting the growth of local businesses. Not, I must say, in terms of just doling out tax-payers' money, but in providing specialist advice when it was required. There are options now. Can these groups, and others, find a home in more local LEPs? Will there be mechanisms for adjacent LEPs to work together when appropriate, to avoid inter-locality competition wasting regional resources? I guess we will soon find out, since, apparently, the details will all be finalised by 7th September. Just to be clear, it isn't the removal of the RDAs that upsets me; it's the inadequate consideration of what they did poorly and what they did well, and the non-existent preparation of their replacements before the existing bodies shut up shop. It has been, so far, an opportunity missed, and I hope that the local business communities can save the day before it is too late. Personally, I am willing to offer any help I can.

So does industry really need any government assistance? It's a question that needs asking. I've certainly heard one multi-millionaire member of the new administration say "I set up my business without any help from government." True, his business required virtually no start up capital, and didn't require substantial upfront commitment to suppliers, but he has a point. The industrial revolution occurred without any government programmes that have gone down in history (although there was more central control and assistance than people realise.) On the other hand it was assisted by the demands of numerous conflicts, an expansion of empire and, in my view, a base of wealthy entrepreneurs who had made their money from industry, understood it, and were willing to invest in it. In other words, Angels. Over the past month I have heard from a number of sources that VC funding scales have continued to drift up, and the base of seed fund availability, both public and private, has continued to decline, leaving an increasing funding gap for those aiming to commercialise new products past the R&D stages. This is an area where one can hope Angels do not fear to tread! There are funding vehicles gaining in popularity which aim to fill this need, while diluting individual risk, and lowering the threshold for personal wealth required to invest in innovative business. Of course, they are still high risk, high return options, but it represents an interesting approach to a gap in the market, and one I'm investigating at the moment.

Of course, there are some areas of the UK engineering industry doing very well. I was fortunate enough to visit one manufacturing start up which is making a stir in a specialist niche. However, one point that came out was how many of the larger companies they supply to are behind the times in terms of their understanding of the manufacturing technology used. They have a very compact footprint (a fancy way of saying "small premises"), yet their customers visit and are clearly expecting to see large amounts of unused space, perhaps with a manned reception and open plan entrance foyer complete with pot plants, as this appears to boost credibility. How does one turn around what seems to be a need for high overheads in their supply stream on the part of some firms? Or should I head out to the garden centre for a nice palm tree?

Being Anti-Social on Social Media

So Fintelis is a new company, and as a new company I decided it needed to use new media, and have some sort of a social media footprint. I know a little about the internet, so I decided that it was obviously something I could do myself. I set up a web page, decided on including a blog (thanks to excellent advice from Angela Podmore of Kinetic PR) and waited for the visitors, and resulting business. Nothing. I know; I'll join Twitter. Still nothing. Maybe if I'm more active on LinkedIn?

Hmmm.

You see there's more to this social media mullarky than I realised. I know enough to be dangerous, and was lucky to get away with just a low profile. I was fortunate enough to bump into someone who has made himself a brand using social media, Donato Esposito, better known to anyone online in the West Midlands, and beyond, as Bostin Bloke. I mentioned my problems to him, and it seems I'm not alone.

There seem to be as many social media outlets out there as there are people. Which are appropriate for which market? He mentioned Facebook.

"I'm on Facebook, " I said, "but I'm keeping that for non-work related friends..."

"So it's not important for you that clients know you have a personality? Or do you have stuff on Facebook you don't want clients to see?"

You see, I've been imagining that I can channel work into LinkedIn, this blog and Twitter, and just use Facebook for the personal stuff. So my "work" channels tend to be very dry, but I'm lucky that I'm not the sort of person who is indiscreet or insulting elsewhere.

Donato mentioned some large and well known brands that have failed far worse than I have, relying on cheap (or even free) fresh faced, straight out of college enthusiasts to try and build an online presence - typically building one aimed at attracting people like them, a straight out of college enthusiast, rather than their target market. I mentally re-read my output. Gulp. It's aimed at .. me, and people like me... Ooops. Building an online brand requires a blend of marketing, technology savvy and, in certain cases, chutzpah that doesn't tend to "just happen."

I'd mention the brands concerned, but since they ended up going to Donato for him to help them out of the hole they dug, it wouldn't be fair. Let's just say that some of them would think nothing of spending a great deal of money on an expert to redesign their stationery - but for some reason the thought of spending some money on how they are perceived in new media seemed to be offensive.

Now I'm one person, running a one person consultancy. I'm going to have a think, and try and retarget my output. Even, shock, consider spending some money and, more importantly, time talking to someone who knows what they're doing. It's been a big step admitting that in this field I'm not that someone!

Similar mistakes made by large blue chips have taken cost and time to clear up. The "free" route can sometimes end up costing them dear.

There are instances as well of worse problems in the social media/business mix. Remember the spy chief with the inappropriate Facebook page? The budding politicians with indiscreet Tweeting? The blurring between social and work media has already claimed some scalps, and I suspect any lazy journalists might still be able to get some copy through scouring the Twitter feeds of people in the public eye who are new to the whole arena.

At least the boss of of BP didn't send any Tweets from his sailing holiday "Having great time on clear blue water. LOL."

Knowledge - Capture, Keeping and Using It

I recently attended an interesting evening get together arranged by Awen Clement at a very trendy, if somewhat overheated, coffee shop in Birmingham which looked at "Knowledge." I'm certainly not in the "knowledge professional" league of the other attendees, but I have some particular interests in the field, as should everyone who works in engineering.

I'm currently talking to a couple of companies which have particular areas of core competency for which they are justly renowned. The first builds essential items of capital plant for a wide range of industries, and has become known as the "go to" people for particularly difficult applications. Whatever the circumstances the odds are they will have seen it, and done it, before. However, there's a growing realisation that this is not down to "the company" (founded in the 1950s) but "the people" - and while they've also a justly deserved reputation for being long term employers who have stuck by their workforce in thick or thin, there's no holding back the tide of time and there are key retirements looming. How can that knowledge be captured before the employees leave (or fall under a bus, for that matter) and how can a system be set up to capture how things are actually (as opposed to theoretically) done in the future? The second issue I won't touch on here, but the first was a topic for discussion over coffee. Firstly, it's a good sign that the company is now aware of the problem. I've worked at a firm with a similar situation, and their response was to call in consultants with tick-sheets and forms. It didn't work, and an entire business area was lost with the workers who left. A typical "engineering mindset" was the verdict of the experts at the coffee house. Their suggestion surprised me. Apparently studies have shown that narrative is the best way of capturing heavily nuanced "practical procedures", much as is taught for witness questioning in law enforcement. The recommendation was videoing of fairly free form narration, going over particular key contracts, but not attempting to guide the interviewees too much on the "first pass". If required the tapes could be transcribed (through outsourcing), which would then enable text searching. It's a novel idea, and one that I've put forward, but I can see there's still some convincing required. The other company may be even trickier; it has an expertise peripheral to its engineering - the shipping of items to areas which are difficult to ship to, usually due to awkward bureaucracies, difficult political situations and conflict. However, as the evening wore on, and the coffee went down, I began to wonder whether much of that capability was down to a few key people in their shipping department, and thought about suggesting someone bring a video camera to work...

Round and About in the West Midlands

There's been a lot going on in the West Midlands "innovative engineering" space since my last blog post.

On 8th June there was the Birmingham Innovation and Entrepreneurship event at Faraday Wharf. A fantastic showcase of some of the region's brightest and best. My personal favourites included "GoGoSheets" - information sharing and co-working using a simple internet browser, and Daden Limited - finally getting commercial value from virtual space. For an engineer, there was perhaps an over concentration on computer and web applications at the expense of "hard" science and engineering. Some redress was Angela Murray's "Roads to Riches" - almost literally turning dirt to money. Well, road sweepings into platinum and rhodium at least.

The West Midlands Cluster Conference in mid-June provided an opportunity to say goodbye the AWM. Will it be missed? Well, opinion at the conference was uniformly "Yes" - and certainly evidence of good work, and high returns on investment, were out on show. I have to say that private canvassing afterwards has given much more mixed feedback. It seems that those who got money are positive; those who didn't aren't, and have criticism about where the money went. I certainly have found trying to deal with AWM difficult on occasion, but have seen some excellent results. However, for me the moment of the conference was hearing the Chief Technology Officer of a major UK company say that he'd like universities to go a step further than they are doing, and take prospective new technologies not just to prototype, but into commercial proving before handing them over to industry. Now I have many, many criticisms of universities and their relationships with industry, but even I recoiled at this. At what stage, exactly, are companies nowadays willing to take risk in the development of new products? On the evidence of this, it seems that they wish to outsource as much risk as possible to the public sector, while complaining bitterly at the fairly small profit that universities then ask for shouldering this risk, if the venture is successful. Shame on you, large UK company who will remain nameless, for now...

I was asked to give a brief workshop on business planning and business plans at a seminar in Birmingham Central Library. through Birmingham Business Insight. On the hottest day of the year a surprisingly large number of hardy souls did an excellent job of testing out my new presentation and discussion framework. The feedback was excellent, very positive yet with some frank points about where I could improve it, and I managed to catch interesting presentations from other people as well, on IP licensing and grants available! I thoroughly recommend the services offered by Business Insight; interesting to note that this is the sort of local devolved organisation the new government says it favours. I wonder whether their budget will be increased with the demise of the RDAs?

On a more personal note I was introduced to the wonder of Skype - how did we talk face-to-face remotely before it? I remember in the early 1990s taking part in a video conference which cost a ridiculous amount of money and took ages to arrange; within minutes of signing up I spoke to contacts in Japan I'd not seen for years, for free. Thoroughly recommended - and paired with GoGoSheets you have a full package! (Yes, I know there are add-ins for Skype, but they seem more complex to use.)

What's happening next? Well, I've meetings in York and Leicester arranged, with real leaders in their respective technology fields, and will be going to an industry roundtable arranged at BCU mid-July. At the end of July I'm looking forward to another CESTAM meeting (I can recommend their "Thrive or Survive" discussions), and my first Birmingham Entrepreneur Meetup. The venue is well regarded! I'll be there tonight (7th July) , in fact, at a Birmingham Knowledge Network open meeting, from 6pm onwards. See you there?

Note to self; schedule in a holiday!

So is Consolidation Good or Bad for Innovation?

One of the technology areas I follow closely is industrial gas detection for life safety. The acquisitive US giant of the industry, Honeywell, has just declared it wishes to buy the safety product company, Sperian - which includes Biosystems, a manufacturer of life safety gas detectors which compete with those in the Honeywell range.

The industry appears to be consolidating. Honeywell has made a number of purchases, and other firms are also in a buying mood.

The question is, will this stifle innovation in the industry?

There are a lot of technology startups out there, and its a lot easier to get investment funding if you can say "...as there are acquisitive major players we anticipate a purchase at a multiple of..." Bizarrely, a market already dominated by major players can be a plus when raising funds, as long as you have a genuine advantage that the market understands and will pay for. (Mind you, I'm not sure how many of the company founders really want to sell out to the big players when they've told the investors they would.) As long as, of course, the major players are in genuine competition with each other on technology, and not just interested in stifling any advances which might require expensive change. Not that I'd suggest such a thing. A more realistic concern is that unconscious group think is probably better at squashing innovation than concious collusion..

Another basic issue is that with fewer producers there is less scope for design, rather than technology, differences. The pace of incremental innovation slows, even if the possibility for disruptive innovation is still there. I have a suspicion that, counter intuitively, a massive industry consolidation renders the chance of something coming from left field and rendering all of them obsolete more, rather than less, likely.

It was something I was scared of when I was in an established manufacturer in the industry, and is something I'm excited about now I'm not! Certainly there are plenty of people in the industry, some of whom I've spoken to, who have things in the lab, on field trial, even in small scale production and in niche markets which, with a little more research, development or even just industry awareness, have the potential to take significant chunks of the market in a relatively short time. I suspect in ten, or even five, years time the gas detection industry may look very different.

Expectations

I was lucky enough to attend a recent Connect Midlands "Amber" workshop on obtaining funds. There was an excellent presentation by a fund manager. "If you're after venture funding because you need cash in the next few months," he informed the audience, "you're f*cked."

The simple truth is that raising start-up or even growth finance based on equity is generally not a rapid process. The industry is full of stories about chance encounters, outlines on napkins, and snap decisions. If it was a regular occurrence, the stories wouldn't be interesting. The seed fund whose manager was so frank actually has a reputation for being one of the speedier ones - four months or so might be possible, but even they are usually more in the six months bracket.

But why is this such a surprise? All such deals require a number of viewpoints to be reconciled. The chief of these is "What is the company worth?" The people seeking investment have a clear view on this, and base it on a rosy vision of the future, secure in their belief that with the team in place, and the funds available, it will not fail. The investors have no such bedrock on which to base the future foundation. All they are aware of is the risk, and the process that must be gone through is a thorough explanation of the level of that risk, and what can be done to mitigate against it. Can the expertise on the team be strengthened? Are there partners we can find?

After all, if you had a few hundred thousand pounds to invest, wouldn't you want to conduct appropriate due diligence on where you were going to put it?

So why is it a surprise that after the election it took a few days to sort out the terms and conditions under which two previously opposing political parties would set aside their differences and agree to govern. I am reasonably sanguine about a coalition government; ten of the sixteen countries graded "AAA" for credit have such a thing. There is no correlation between good governance and "strong" (or as some would have it, dictatorial) governance in economic terms, and there are enough counter examples whichever side you try to argue. What does worry me is that it happened so quickly. I would have preferred the deal to have taken a little longer to thrash out, and perhaps a little more stress testing to take place behind close doors, since I suspect we will soon see some in public.

And what of the new government itself? Am I happy? Well, the proposed changes to capital gains tax are a worry to anyone who needs to raise finance for business growth - we have been promised that there will be measures in place to protect entrepreneurs, but we'll have to wait to see how effective they are, and whether they recognise it isn't just the man in a shed who sometimes needs to raise money to fund expansion based on a bright idea; established SMEs sometimes need it for their own growth. The other announced policies are the usual mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. Scrapping of HIPS will destroy an entire industry as quickly as the previous government built it. Bearing in mind the dire straits we are in, I have a suspicion that what happens now will affect our children more than us, and lay down an economic structure that will persist, for good or bad, for more than a generation.

In other words, the answer to "Am I happy about the new government?" is the same as the answer Chairman Mao gave to the question "Was the French Revolution a good thing?"

It's too early to tell.

Unlike Mao, I will tell you who may be able to answer the question for you. My daughter. Except she hasn't yet learnt to talk.

This Election Matters

I was lucky enough to attend a live debate held by Radio5Live locally as part of their election coverage. Hosted by Victoria Derbyshire, it covered the issue of trust; can we trust politicians? I thought the issue got sidelined into the fairly narrow, if emotive and understandable, concern with expenses. Personally, if a cabinet minister needs to know her husband's needs are catered for to do her job better, or a member of the loyal opposition can keep the government under scrutiny better if he's happy his ducks are kept warm at night, that's fine. I'm more worried by the tendency of ministers to fawn over wealth, celebrity and fame, and the suspicion that this may influence policy. Witness the advertising fudge in favour of Bernie Ecclestone, the hobnobbing of both Osborne and Mandelson with Russian oligarchs, and the accepting of holiday accommodation from famous friends by Tony Blair, while Prime Minister. I want policies to be decided on the basis of the needs of the country, not conversations had on yachts off Caribbean islands. Admittedly, not yet up to Italian standards of dubious probity, but enough of a concern to me, and in my view a direct descent from the issues with the Major government we were assured had been fixed, and a spur for the hunt by soon-to-be-former MPs for jobs lobbying for special interests.

It's clear from the passions that were generated that those attending the event are clearly engaged with, and interested in, the political debate.

However, outside this event, where people interested had self selected themselves to attend, a more worrying trend has emerged. A continuation of something that has been growing for several years. A view that it doesn't really matter. They're all the same.

Regardless of political hue, this time I must disagree. For the first time in many, many years, this election matters. For businesses, for individuals, for the future - there are some choices to be made.

In my own work my major concern is to do with babies. Specifically, those sat in bathwater that I can imagine any incoming government - whether new to the job, or presenting itself as reinvigorated - will want to throw out. As a speaker at a recent CBI lunch said "Once a quango starts doing what it was originally established to do, it's usually a sign that it's going to be scrapped." There are issues with the support structures and funding routes available for high growth businesses in the West Midlands, and elsewhere in the UK. There are too many bodies, with overlapping briefs, and different agendas, and the lines between private and public initiatives are sometimes too blurred. However, some of them do some startlingly good work in certain areas. I have a suspicion that the rush will be to scrap the lot, leaving the area with nothing, until some new framework is pieced together and given time to find its feet. Or not.

My wish is for an incoming administration to check what is working, because some of it is, and use that as a model to replace what is not, before rushing to begin again.

To me this is more important than narrow concerns about NI, or even taxes and public spending in a broader sense. The nurturing and growth of the next generation of successful British businesses, based on innovation and imagination, is what has the potential to fix both the public finances and, perhaps more importantly, our recent national slump into poor self esteem.

In any event, this election matters. For the future, vote!

(And no, I haven't decided yet - but I will.)

Something that fits in...

Interestingly Kieran O'Brien at Denovo has been thinking along similar lines to my last post. He's put the data from some of the work he's done in looking at innovation in SMEs, and how to reach them as a consultant here: http://lnkd.in/xe-SST.

Worth looking through for his article. He goes further and examines the point of using a consultant at all for SMEs here, linking this to aiding a manufacturing recovery.

The Lone Consultant and Other Myths

So now the election date is official, even if the announcement caught no-one by surprise.

Anyone with an interest in the UK as a centre for innovative engineering, whatever their political inclination, should be participating in this election; questioning candidates, giving their views to canvassers, and basically being a right royal pain in the backside to anyone and everyone who is part of, or hopes to be part of, Britain's political establishment.

I've been fortunate enough over the past few weeks to have had an opportunity to meet a local MP who chairs one of the many committees where the work of governing the country really gets done. I have to say that even for a cynic like me it was actually a relatively heartening experience. It's clear that whatever the vituperative language coming from the party leaders, at the grass roots, getting things done, level there is considerable consensus, or at least accommodation. However, as the election itself finally emerges from the "phoney war", it is likely that there will be a need for the parties to put more "clear blue water" between each other, and the atmosphere, at least to start with, in the new parliament will be clearly different, as will many of the faces. What will this mean for industry, and specifically "advanced" or "innovative" companies who are finding their feet?

I had a chance to put one side of the argument when I met the Tory PPCs (Prospective Parliamentary Candidates) for Worcestershire at a recent event organised by the Federation of Small Businesses. I have to admit that I got the feeling that this is not something that local candidates give much thought to, although one, closer to manufacturing than the others, came fully prepared with a copy of "Ingenious Britain" - Sir James Dyson's excellent document. He couldn't, of course, say how much of it would be adopted should the Conservatives win. Understandably local candidates have to be concerned with winning round local people - and most local people, also understandably, can't spare time for the broader view.

Outside of politics, Fintelis attended an excellent event arranged by CESTAM, the Centre of Excellence for Sales in Technology and Advanced Manufacturing. Organised into "tables" the attendees addressed the problems of selling advanced manufacturing capability in the current market and, you'll be glad to know, solved the current crisis in the West Midlands regional manufacturing industry. Following on from this I also went to an Innovista presentation on working on technology with India and China. Some excellent ideas, and useful contacts, since followed up.

Which leads on to the title of this post. One colleague I spoke to mentioned a contract, put out by a government body which he bid for, eventually won by a large "blue chip" management consultancy. It will now cost three times or more what he put forward, under the assumption that the large consultancy has the best expertise, compared to a "lone consultant." In fact, anyone in the field knows there is no such thing. Each of us has a network, and a jealously guarded collection of cards of experts in related fields. Any good consultant will call on trusted colleagues to handle parts of contracts outside his expertise (with the client's knowledge and approval, of course), whether through an associateship arrangement, or as part of a "virtual company" arrangement (such as "The Team That Can" or "Synogis".) In either case, the expert brought in will have wide experience in the field, gained at senior level in industry. In contrast, large consulting firms tend to rely upon a pool of recent graduates, sticking closely to the approved training materials, where each assignment is rammed into one of a limited number of corporate methodologies, regardless of its own individual attributes. Think this is over doing the criticism? Not according to friends who have worked in (and one or two who are still working in) such companies. Believe me, I've seen large corporations brought to their knees as the high level consultant the company thought it was hiring fades into the background, and a fresh faced graduate is brought in to implement the standard recommendations that would have been put forward whatever the analysis really suggested. "Concentrate on your best 20% of customers" ring any bells?

In other words, going for a "lone consultant" can get you a wider pool of expertise, and a broader cross section of views, for a far, far better price, than engaging with one of the large corporate firms, where the only real skills will have been engaged in drawing up the company group think manual to be followed by the people fresh out of university who will really be working on your assignment.

The Future of High Technology Britain?

It's been a busy few months for Fintelis - which means me! Time to pick up the keyboard again, and jot down some notes on something that will probably affect the entire UK high technology economy, and our innovation credibility, for many years to come.

Odds are that there will be an election in May this year. With the treasury struggling, all the parties are discussing cuts to public services. There has been criticism of the poor payback from publicly funded venture investments, as the media decides to apply 3 and 5 year timescales to funds that were both specifically intended to operate on longer timescales than commercial venture capital operations and to look at "impact" beyond pure financial payback. It looks as though companies fighting to start the businesses that will drag us from recession are going to be hindered, not helped, by whichever party comes to power - or holds the reins of power, if there is a hung parliament.

It is understandable, of course, that each interest group wants its interests catered for, and feels others should bear the pain of the cuts. However, manufacturing, and especially high value added manufacturing, actually has the capability to end the need for cuts longer term if it can be fostered in the right way. The devil is in the detail, of course - what exactly is the right way?

Whilst none of the parties has issued a coherent set of policies on this, and the current government has a patchwork quilt approach to the whole issue, at least the Tories have commissioned someone else to consider the problem. Buried under a host of other news items deemed of greater worth (footballing infidelity? who knows) Sir James Dyson of vacuum cleaner fame released a report he'd been asked to write by David Cameron. Much of what he says is unlikely to be adopted by any government that wants to retain favour with backers who do not share Dyson's convert zeal for engineering, and his disdain for its detractors. Ironically the Tory party has more than its fair share of those. For the rest of us it offers a tantalising glimpse of what could be, and should be, adopted, or at least considered, by those who lead the country, whatever the colour of their political ribbons.

You can download "Ingenious Britain" here.

Angels in the Architecture

It's been busy over the past few weeks. Specifically I seem to have been spending a lot of time in the company of Angel Investment folk. Makes them sound a little like pixies.. Anyway, there are worse people to spend time with. I haven't yet met an uninteresting person in that particular field. I guess it's because they have to deal well in two directions, both those with the cash, and those with the ideas.

I thought it's worth passing on a few gems I heard over that time, properly credited of course.

Firstly, from Pat Geraghty, partner at Central England Business Angels, a few words of advice on what not to say if you're hoping for Angel funding:

• It's such a good idea I don't need a business plan
• It's such a complex idea a need a 200 page business plan
• I deserve a £70K/pa salary as CEO
• So do my mum (company secretary), dad (CTO) and sister (I give up - director perhaps?)
• The first year our turnover will be £30K, rising to £4M in the second year
• We're British, so we don't actually do "sales." (Pat is not from 'round here' of course.)
• However, our product is self evidently fantastic, and will immediately get 50% of the market
• Because there is no competition
• I have all the business skills needed to run the company

Looking around there was a mixture of laughter and sheepish looks as she ran down the list. Some from the same people.

A few days later and Stephen McEwen from Beer and Partners was able to give the flip side of the coin. What three things must be centre stage in your (commendably brief) business plan?

I was pleased to get my guess right in his entertaining interactive presentation.

• How much money is needed?
• What exactly is it for?
• When and how do I get it back?

Interestingly I discovered that one key difference between VCs and Angels might be in the length of business plan required. Pat was adamant; 10 pages maximum. The consensus from VCs was that up to 30 was acceptable. Perhaps it's a concentration span issue? Luckily Beer and Partners do a very good guide on how to do a tailored business plan for submission to Angels, which I thoroughly recommend. (I notice they also mention 30 pages, but I would recommend less than that, personally.)

Good luck!

A game changing present - and why I think BBC radio 4 was wrong.

I hope you had a great holiday, and Santa brought you what you wanted. I was lucky enough to get a Sony e-reader for Christmas. I hadn't asked for it, so it was the ideal gift; an unexpected, yet useful, gadget I wouldn't have thought of buying for myself. It took a little while to start getting the most out of it, due to a few technical points which aren't worth cluttering up the main part of this post with. ( (*)I'll put them at the bottom for those who are interested!)

Having (eventually) got to grips with it, I heard an item on eBooks on a BBC Radio 4 arts programme, and listened attentively. Disappointingly they clearly seemed to miss the point, bemoaning the advance of technology, yet adamant that the paper book would still rule supreme.

The key game changing aspects for me are:

1) Free books! The wonderful "Feedbooks", amongst others, provide budding authors a way to bring their work to readers' attention without having to engage the interest of agents or publishers. Some authors (like Doctorow) use free e-publications to promote their paper output, others to supplant it. Either way, if I ran a vanity publishing house, I would be very, very worried. Of course, there is also access to a vast collection of free material which is out of copyright. Will this engender a renewed uptake in the classics? I don't think so, although it could make studying English Literature at university very much cheaper - and this educational aspect has some potential for changing the notion of "school text books". The collection of heavy tomes I remember carrying round could be replaced by one slim electronic volume with everything loaded on it (and set to expire after a year.) This has scope to drastically reduce the cost to learning centres of providing textbooks for their pupils, as they could effectively "rent" the digital rights for those works still in copyright.

2) Free newspapers. I can set "Calibre" to download the electronic versions of The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph for me overnight (I always try and read at least two contrasting viewpoints), automatically uploading them to the eReader. No adverts, no ink to rub off on hands, and they always arrive before I leave - yet I don't then have to carry around a weighty laptop - or weighty piles of paper! Of course, I can also download paid content (the Economist for example) but the free options change the game. Clearly newspapers want to make money, and others will have to follow in the footsteps of print media looking to earn income from their digital content - but once they do, it will probably push more people to other sources, such as the BBC, or consolidators, such as "Instapaper". Either that, or we will see more advertising masquerading as articles, to ensure that the items that fund the journalism get in front of the punters.

So what startups may we see looking to exploit the niche that is gradually widening as the platforms improve? My initial guesses would be in the fields of education and news. Look for "bundled content" - selling a package of items rather than a single epublication, and subscription based services targeted on a specialisation. For example, a potential field would be in maintenance and support applications; automatically updating car manuals for the AA and RAC, for example. It would be perfectly possible for a single reader to have all the technical information for all the likely models of car found on the UK's roads, for example, together with the latest information on what is most likely to go wrong with each, based on the organisation's own data.

In short, eBooks aren't "books" - they're a flexible, user friendly means to present information in a clear format. Their niche is probably only temporary until computers end up with screens which are more comfortable to read, whether based on e-ink or other technologies, and lower prices, but until then they have the potential to become ubiquitous in some key applications, and that can give opportunities to the right sort of minds.

(*) The technical stuff. Well, the hardware and embedded software of Sony's cheapest eBook reader are simple and uncluttered. However, as has been the habit for Sony of late, they are let down by abysmal PC software, and dreadful customer service. At the time of writing I haven't yet managed to get the included software working. Responses from the support site have been along the lines of "try re-installing" - AGAIN. A quick search on the web indicates I'm not alone - so it isn't just me being stupid. Luckily the wonderful Calibre (for free publications) and Adobe's Digital rights management software (for purchased books) work flawlessly, and I've now stopped trying to flog that particular dead horse. The other interesting point is that the non-proprietary "EPUB" format works better on Sony's reader than their proprietary "LRF" format - which appears buggy and has some bizarre conventions anyway (such as the entire document repaginating if you zoom in).