Reflections On Digital Week: Imran Ali

As Yorkshire's second Digital Week draws to a close, it's fitting that we reflect upon the dualities of what we understand to be "digital" in our region's perception of digital media and technology.

Idealism vs Hedonism
This Saturday I spent the day at Bradford's first BarCamp, in the company of people recounting the history of web design, marketing iPhone applications, the legal challenges of Web 2.0 and using open source software for social change.

Around a hundred individuals convened to freely share, debate and deconstruct what they know - ranging from activism, technology and design to politics and sustainable living - this group was a living example of what Alvin Tolfer envisaged as an "adhocracy".

It was fitting that this should take place in Bradford, the city that gave us software luminary John Buxton, educated the founders of Freeserve, hosted the formation of the Labour Party and indeed Tim O'Reilly's maternal family. In the rubble of a city experiencing a long, slow decline, a group of individuals was again plotting to change their world and yours too.

This idealistic, gritty, meritocratic, grassroots, bootstrapped inspiration and optimism freely flowing from BarCamp Bradford stood in stark contrast to Friday's oligarchical DADI Awards, a closed celebration of the digital agency.

DADI's awards rightly recognise the achievements of the region's agency culture, but sadly fail to encompass the broader horizon of arguably more important and innovative activity...the incredible contribution that entrepreneurs, technologists, geeks and hackers have made in the region. Who will recognise and award the best startup, best application of digital democracy or most significant contribution to open source?

A Tale Of Two Booms: From dotcom to 2.0
In the late '90s dotcom boom, the loft spaces of The Calls and Marshall Mill along Leeds' "Silicon Shore" gave us dotcom success stories such as Freeserve, Ananova and Energis. Each laying down the media and infrastructural backbone of the British Internet and leading to multi-million and multi-billion pound acquisitions. Further south in Sheffield's Plusnet was punching above its weight to compete with powerful incumbents and inadvertently creating a vibrant technology ecosphere in the city.

Now in the 2.0 era, the infrastructure of glass, copper and radio developed during the dotcom boom is enabling an emerging infrastructure of innovation and thought leadership. Leeds alone has given us...

• the country's largest coworking collective at Old Broadcasting House alongside vibrant Hackspace and OpenStreetMapping communities
  
• the newly launched OpenLeeds movement, liberate local government data for the development of user-created public services
• a booming industry of technology conferences and "unconferences", bringing TED, O'Reilly Ignite, Girl Geek Dinners and Carsonified to the city along with home-grown franchises such as LSx, PhotoCamp and Think Visibility
  
• Innovation in digital publishing with the launch of beatblogger roles by the Guardian and local video podcasts such as Vertical Slice and Apps & Hats.
  

In our other regional hub, Sheffield, the arrival of 4iP and inQubator alongside venture-backed startups such as Ensembli and FuelMyBlog signal that investors have continued belief in the potential for local ideas to "go global". Further East in Hull, the city recently hosted it's first digital and technology conference.

What Is Digital?
Digital Week has showcased the region's potential as a hub for digital marketing and production, but perhaps overlooked the region's broader digital heritage and its achivements outside the agency world.

From startups & entrepreneurs, to tech conferences, indie publishers and indeed a well established games industry, digital means much more. Earlier this year, Lord Carter outlined visions for a Digital Britain, overlooking the very real fact that we live in a post-digital culture, enabled in no small part by the innovations of Yorkshire's previous generation of startups.

Looking to the future, Digital Week needs to embrace the entire continuum of digital culture in the region - to move beyond slick websites, tuxedoed awards and vacuous brochures towards engagement with the fuzzy, idealistic grassroots innovators and thought leaders around us.

For Digital Week to avoid the accusations of irrelevance, it cannot be owned by the Council, by regional development agencies or by sponsors, but must be owned by those who built the web, the internet and the post-digital culture we all enjoy today. It needs to be owned by you.

It only took us five-thousand days to build the web - what can we do with Digital Week in the next 365 days?


Imran Ali ∙ @imran