SMEs, Technology and Brussels

I was delighted to be invited to Brussels by the Lisbon Council to talk SMEs and technology and their expert roundtable. What was the main lesson I took away? Crowdsourcing.... Could this be the answer for digital economy entrepreneurs struggling to persuade a cautious and risk-averse financial community of the viability of their strange-fangled business plans? Certainly. Is the regulatory environment geared up for this? Absolutely not.....

Thanks to the fabulous Ann Mettler and Paul Hofheinz for bringing me to Brussels to talk about a few insights from the Centre for London Tech city research project.

The most important job I've done all year

The most important job I've done all year... was being maid of honour at my sister Sara's fabulous wedding to my new brother-in-law Luke, in Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens.

Congratulations to the happy couple!!!!

Back to university

Six months after I submitted my dissertation, I was delighted to return to UCL to lecture second years on Tech City, the subject of my research. Invited by my former professor Dr. Nick Phelps after an earlier presentation by Max Nathan, my fellow researcher with Centre for London, it was not only a pleasure to engage with planning students, but also very helpful to organise my thoughts as Max and I (and the CfL team) enter the intensive Brain Crunch part of the research project. It was Friday afternoon on the last day of term and very sunny outside, so I was pleasantly surprised not only by the turnout, but also the way students engaged with the topic. The cool of Shoreditch and the digital industry perhaps held their attention more than government efforts to shape it, which they indignantly pointed out doesn't fit very well with their localism agenda. I hadn't yet discovered this photograph of local design firm 00:/'s proposal for turning the scruffy Old Street roundabout around which the cluster is centred into a sort of Picadilly style circus, but if I had perhaps they might have thought twice about letting the community decide for itself.....

Emma Vandore reports on the TCPA’s Annual Conference ‘Re-building Britain – Shaping Our Future

This article was published in the January edition of the TCPA journal.

Britain‘s housing crisis – and particularly how reforms to the planning system will address the chronic shortfall – dominated debate at the TCPA’s Annual Conference, held at the beginning of December. In an era of spending cuts, debate at One Whitehall Place centred on concerns over affordable and social housing and the lack of strategic spatial guidance on how many homes are needed and where.

To read the full story, click here.

Know Place on Tech City

What began as a spontaneous clustering of start-ups in London’s East End is turning into a global hub of the digital industry – as the government is branding Tech City. It seems to be working. Entrepreneurs I’ve been interviewing for a series of research projects report that government attention is bringing useful visibility and prestige.

The Shoreditch entrepreneurs affect a low-key, British approach, referring to the area as Silicon Roundabout – a reference to the ugly Old Street traffic circle at the heart of the area – but the multimillion pound success of companies such as Last.fm and Tweetdeck belies their modesty. Music website Last.fm was sold to CBS for £140m, and Tweedeck, an application developed to help users manage their Twitter feeds, was bought by Twitter for £25m earlier this year. The hope of the British government, like administrations the world over, is to create an environment that nurtures a home-grown Google or Facebook.

To read the full story, click here.

Know Place

Inspired perhaps by my research among the entrepreneurial start-up community in Shoreditch, I have embarked on a venture of my own. Together with three very talented experts in place-marketing and urban policy, we have set up a collective: Know Place.

Our website is currently under development. We intend it to become a centre for knowledge and networking for the place-branding community. We've a few projects under development - watch this space!

Tech City: The research continues

I'm very pleased to be working with the fantastic new think tank Centre for London on their Tech City research project. Satisfying both to be working with great people and to see my dissertation get used.