I received an absolute joke of an email message from my local MP this year. Here it is in full:

I would like to wish everyone in Bristol West a very happy Christmas. I

will be spending Christmas and New Year at home in St Andrews. It’s a

time of year when I can relax and enjoy all that Bristol has to offer.

Westminster is far away and there are few constituency duties. I even

get to enjoy the retail therapy on Gloucester Road, Park Street, Clifton

and Broadmead!

This year marks 400 years since the publication of the King James Bible

and there were several events in the city. William Tyndale, one of the original

translators of the Bible into English, preached in Bristol and you can see his

statue in Millennium Square.

I read from the Bible a few weeks ago when I joined the congregation at

All Saints Church on Pembroke Road for their traditional Advent service.

I will be attending Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, probably as in most

years at St Mary Redcliffe. But I know that my constituency is a place

of many religions and it’s also, according to the census, the most

secular part of Britain. But whatever our beliefs, Christmas is a time

for family and friends to enjoy time together and reflect on events.

In particular Christmas is a time when we should think of those less

fortunate than ourselves. December sees Human Rights Day

marked around the globe and I was pleased to join

members of Bristol’s branch of Amnesty International at one of their

regular letter writing sessions to prisoners of conscience.

All around the city hundreds of Bristolians will be supporting charities

over the Christmas holiday. I’ve been to see the preparations at Caring

at Christmas in St Paul’s, where homeless people will be fed, entertained

and given a warm bed to sleep in from Christmas Eve to New Years Day.

However you are marking Christmas I hope you have a peaceful and restful

break.

Yours sincerely,

Signature – Stephen Williams MP

Now, I’m sorry, but what? This is the kind of drivel our MPs are paid to come up? I have emailed him a reply… I expect to receive nothing back (like last time) but it’s not going to stop me trying.

Apologies for this rather mean-spirited rant in advance. Please read it.

This email was meaningless sentimental twaddle. It says:

1) Merry Christmas.

2) Some random fact that makes you sound like you know something about

Bristol but that one of your researchers probably just dug up off Wikipedia.

3) I’m a Christian. If you’re Christian vote for me, and if you’re not Christian

then vote for me because I like you too!

4) Lots of people give to charity this time of year. I also turn up occasionally

to appear to be supportive and score political points.

What is the purpose of this email? You are supposed to be representing your

constituents. Where is the content of this communication? Where are your

opinions on recent issues? Why should I vote for you next time (I voted for

you this time!).

I’m sorry, I like Christmas like everyone else, but whilst I can tolerate

receiving this kind of drivel on a corporate Christmas card from Barclays,

I find it deeply worrying that those who are paid to represent us can

think of nothing better to say.

Right, rant over. Will keep you posted.

Yesterday I went to the Lion’s Den Social Enterprise pitching session at Bristol University. I was going to see some of the new ideas and meet some people as their projects are no doubt relevant for Sponsorcraft! As the evening wore on, I had this nagging discomfort about what I was watching. It all stemmed from the definition of a “social enterprise”. Those pitching all seemed to take a different view to each other, and so did those on the panel of judges!

Contradictions

I think it’s vitally important to encourage a bit more debate and thought about what it means to be a “social enterprise”. At least one of the panel seemed to believe that irrespective of the social good that was being done by a company, that it could not call itself a social enterprise unless it basically didn’t make any profit (or reinvested all profits into more “social good”). And yet one of the questions from another panel member asked how a startup might defend their (small, charitable) idea against replication.

These two positions can’t coexist! If a small, stable, socially-beneficial startup was doing very well with their little social enterprise, why on earth would they want to prevent other people starting up replicas/copies of the business model? Surely that would represent a greater social good, in that it creates more value for everyone? The only reason they would want to do this would be in order to monopolize the market and make more profit…

But… what is the point in scaling something and monopolizing a market if – as another panelist believed – true social enterprises shouldn’t ever make any profit? It would then be better for everyone to have 100s or 1000s of micro-enterprises, each just about breaking even and doing social good in the process!

Highlight

This was highlighted with another company pitching. They clearly had an idea with potential which unquestionably does social good. Their entire website, product and business was a social good in itself. They were a social enterprise “by design”, because the only way they could ever make money was by doing something socially valuable. And yet one panelist grilled them afterwards on how they might change their model to make sure that any profits they make get reinvested into e.g. educational courses or some other socially-valuable thing.  It is disastrously bad advice to ask them to change their model so that they make less money. Money is needed to scale ideas, and ideas like theirs need scale.

Changing World

The reason I think this needs more debate is that the world is shifting. Even the Companies Act 2006 signifies a change from a focus on Shareholder Value to Stakeholder Value. In a world of dwindling natural resources – less the “unbounded savanna” and more the “fragile ark” – unless companies create real (and probably social) value, they will simply cease to exist as private companies as they perform no useful function. There’s more on this in Umair Haque’s New Capitalist Manifesto (well worth a read if you have time – if you don’t, just follow him on Twitter – @umairh).

Sponsorcraft

This is something we – at Sponsorcraft – feel passionate about as we have the same issue defining what we do. We are a venture-funded startup, and yet we consider ourselves a social enterprise. We provide a service which offers huge value to students and alumni. If students’ projects get funded, we take a commission; if they don’t, we take nothing (no fees to register/sign up/post projects etc). Therefore again – by design – we only make money when everyone – society included – wins. And yet, we are venture-funded, so private profits will be made if we are successful. To get us off the ground will end up taking significant cash investment – and attracting investment is impossible without providing some reward for that investment. Therefore it isn’t tenable to ask companies like us to plough any profits back into other socially-valuable things – or we would never be able to raise investment in the first place!

Conclusion

This space needs change, and we need to think about dropping the divisive monikers of the past.

I don’t see any real – and sustained – distinction between social enterprise and “normal” enterprise. Perhaps instead we should consider “social” enterprise the mainstream, and “normal” enterprise should be renamed “evil enterprise”.

It’s been a long, long time since the last post. Part of this is the incredibly hard work that is going into Sponsorcraft at the moment – a company I am proud to say I am running. It’s going very well… but more about that shortly.

This post is about TangibleFX, a company I helped set up and am now an advisor to. Over the past year I have watched – and I’d like to think helped – TangibleFX go from being basically a guy with a crazy idea to a company with a marketable product, a solid team, and a network of supportive individuals and organisations.

Check out the TangibleFX video here.

TangibleFX is raising money on IndieGoGo at present – please click through and support us on our journey, and get some wicked rewards.

The Beginning

I met Lee Arromba in late 2010. He played a guitar and wore a baseball cap that enabled him to manipulate all aspects of the guitar’s sound. It was like wearing an effects pedal on his head. Even though I am only a classically-trained musician, I could see that the concept had real potential.

It’s been a long road since then. The company has been renamed and re-branded. Dan Newton, an incredibly talented DJ AND music researcher (yes, seriously) joined the team in a leading role. The product has gone from something that was cool but niche to something that is cool and seriously marketable.

Persistence

The strange thing is that so many times, we all considered just throwing in the towel. Despite some encouraging introductions to investors, we were simply too early for most to look at. The product didn’t stick with everyone we met – some didn’t like the fact it was head-mounted. Some felt it lacked control (this is simply a bizarre perception – it has far greater control and sensitivity than almost any effects pedal) – we learned a lot about how we were going to have to market/target the product from some of these interactions.

However, one thing I can credit Lee and Dan for is their persistence. Persistence is a rare quality in young entrepreneurs, who too often flit from idea to idea and never settle or commit 100% to anything. I believe it is a quality that will ultimately mean TangibleFX will succeed.

Now

Now, over a year after I originally met Lee, TangibleFX has a new product. It is mounted on an intrument or on the body. It has straps to hold it on – you choose where it goes. Rather than using a bespoke software interface, it can talk to all of the major pieces of existing music software. It’s something that is designed to augment the existing equipment rather than compete with it (for now!).

This technology is going to be a big deal. The degree of control you can achieve over the music you create is extraordinary, and it is so natural that anyone can pick it up.

How you can help

TangibleFX is now live on IndieGoGo. We’re raising money to get the new product – the MIDI-Moov – into the hands of professional musicians and the general public. You can help by spreading the message, or donating yourself.

This is technology that could ultimately change music for the better – so be a part of it and help bring it to the world.

The press release for this is on our website – so head on over there to check it out if you want more info.

There are a few key lessons we at FoosballUK have learned along the way so far that have made a massive difference:

• Put together a team of differences. This doesn’t mean people who will argue all the time – it means a team of people who see the same problem but from a totally different perspective. There’s nothing more valuable than getting a new perspective on an old problem.
• Listen to everyone who offers you advice and suggestions (regardless of their domain expertise), particularly if “the general public” is your customer: and learn what you can. I received a nugget of gold from a friend – Bill Earner – with no experience in foosball but a keen eye for business – we trialled his suggestion and it increased our average revenues by over 90%. Finally, if you are told something is impossible…
• Don’t be afraid to challenge “norms”. You will be told countless times that things are impossible – this usually means there is a big opportunity. If you start with a fresh perspective and you aren’t afraid to give it a shot, you can make almost anything happen. The nice thing about “impossible” is that it means most others have given up.

There are countless material successes I can point to that have led to the growth and success of this company so far, but the critical successes have ultimately been to do with a team dynamic that encourages listening, learning and flexibility.

Whilst this might come across as a bit vapid to those in web startups where this kind of environment is a must – these simple structures seem to permeate every successful business I have ever encountered – from multinationals through to sole traders/partnerships.

XMOS could position itself as a leader by breaking new ground in open hardware, because no-one else has technology that enables you to implement hardware functions in software. The engagement needs to be direct – with both leadership and communities of the various movements, helping sponsor organisations, conferences, and grass roots development in more active ways. It will take time and effort – and possibly money.

OSHW advocates talk about “tangibles” as being a core differentiator from OSS. By this they basically (currently) mean things such as printed circuit boards. At a certain granularity, boards stop becoming open. Typically, the “closed” level consists of tools (FPGAs), peripheral blocks (FPGAs/MCUs), and the hardware itself (everything).

With XMOS, both peripherals and tools are open – XMOS moves the boundary. No-one else can do this. Eventually – of course – the logical implication is that the hardware itself will become open, whether this is done by XMOS or someone else.

It will be interesting to watch how XMOS engages with this community over the coming months.

You could even hack a little library for Python that uses this virtual processor to execute CSP-like higher-level constructs.

It’s mostly for experimental/learning reasons, but totally public/open on Github so feel free to use for any purpose. I take no responsibility and large parts are completely untested – whilst I think I have the channel and alternative semantics right, there’s a good chance there are bugs.

Feel free to add notes on anything you’d like to see fixed/improved.

Inmos

Inmos was a British Semiconductor company, founded by Iann Barron in 1978 and, like XMOS, was based in Bristol, UK. Inmos’s first products were static RAM devices, followed by dynamic RAMs and EEPROMs. Despite early production difficulties, Inmos eventually captured around 60% of the world SRAM market. However, Barron’s long-term aim was to produce an innovative microprocessor architecture intended for parallel processing, the transputer.

David May – now XMOS CTO – was recruited to design this processor, which eventually went into production in 1985 in the form of the T212 and T414 chips. Whilst eventually Inmos was acquired by first SGS-Thompson and later ST Microelectronics, the Inmos legacy lives on in the South West of the UK and has spawned one of Europe’s leading semiconductor clusters in Bristol.

XMOS

XMOS was founded in July 2005 by Ali Dixon (then final-year student at the University of Bristol), James Foster (former CEO of Oxford Semiconductor), Noel Hurley (formerly at ARM Holdings), David May (former chief architect of Inmos), and Hitesh Mehta (Acacia Capital Partners). The name XMOS is a loose reference to Inmos.

XMOS is the leader in real-time event processors (REPs) – which are high-performance, predictable processors and allow complete systems to be implemented in software using interface, DSP and control code.

Both the XMOS XS1 architecture and language – XC – borrow heavily from ideas developed inside Inmos. “It was only natural that we should formally recognise the long heritage of the company,” explained David May. “Inmos was many years ahead of its time and without its legacy – in terms of local skills and expertise here in Bristol – XMOS could never have been founded. Many of the ideas are strongly related and we are very proud to recognise this with our rebrand.”

Transputer

Enthusiasts will also be delighted to see the resurgence of the transputer brand. The transputer (the name deriving from transistor and computer) was the first general purpose microprocessor designed specifically to be used in parallel computing systems. The goal was to produce a family of chips ranging in power and cost that could be wired together to form a complete parallel computer. The name was selected to indicate the role the individual transputers would play: numbers of them would be used as basic building blocks, just as transistors had earlier.

The parallels with the XMOS XCore architecture are plain to see. “Amazingly, Inmos decided never to trademark the transputer brand, so the chip rebrand was an easier decision,” said David May. “The original Inmos intention was for the brand to become so recognised, we wouldn’t need the trademark. Whilst the transputer eventually sold in the hundreds of millions, it became a highly integrated part. Bringing the brand back was long overdue – and we’re the only ones with modern-day transputers!”

Rebrand Launch

XMOS – now Inmos – says the changes will take visible effect from April 2nd, 2011. “We’re very excited with the new website branding and positioning,” beamed David. We managed to grab a screenshot of the staging server whilst we were in the office – click here to view it.

Contact

For more information please contact press@xmos.com or call L. Oofa on +44 117-927-6004.

We eventually graduated, and life took over – as it often does – and the time to promote and update Sponsorcraft dried up. Moreover, we didn’t ever figure out the business model, and successive attempts to pluck one out the air ended in frustration.

I have now decided to re-open Sponsorcraft along its original lines – as a means to help match up creative and motivated individuals get the sponsorship and funding they deserve to pursue their dreams. I have some exciting plans to develop Sponsorcraft along the lines of its greatest value – which I hope will be to the customer and user. A business model will evolve over time.

Sponsorcraft is now on Twitter, and will be blogging developments and a roadmap too. If anyone wants to get involved and help, the opportunity is very much open.

It was about time. Long-time reader, frequent retweeter and infrequent critic of Umair Haque, I finally picked up his book – The New Capitalist Manifesto – and gave it the attention it deserved. I have taken some time to write a considered response. This is not a review, but more a series of comments and queries. I hope where I have been critical I have also been constructive – that is, after all, the point.

The first thing I should say is that Umair’s book has been literally drowned in praise – to its detriment, I believe. However, buried in the mountains of transparent, sycophantic drivel, there are sufficient real reviews by people I respect that there is little effusive praise left to add! The book is great – the author is great – enough said. Now let’s get building…

Curious Discomfort

About 3/4 of the way through the book, I was hit by a profound sense of discomfort. It took me a while to realise what it was. It was the examples. Whole chapters of well-structured, inspiring and constructive concepts were brought home and exemplified with a series of thin and disappointing reference points.

But putting some thought behind it, this is something the author can do nothing about. The examples he chose were the best available to us. And so the inescapable conclusion is that this book, and the concept it boldly graffities across the landscape of Wall Street and globe-spanning multinationals, is ahead of its time. So far ahead in fact, that whilst the seeds of the revolution have been planted by flawed models of capital growth and fertilised by decades of global decay, we are seeing only the first tiny, fragile shoots breaking through the surface.

I am looking for the examples that will make it into the 10th anniversary edition. So should we all be…

Emotional Battery

The writing is raw. Superlatives and adjectives abound, and Umair Haque lays bare his disdain for “business as usual” and his passion for constructive change like a savage, emotional 21st century architect.

At times this is difficult to handle – it can be a one-sided rant; a bruising onslaught, forcing this reader – at least – to take regular breaks and reflect on the often brilliant message – the vaccine and not the needle.

Constructive Queries

I have three fundamental elements I think deserve more attention and exploration. Any responses here or elsewhere are gratefully received.

The first concerns the model of the 21st century economy as an “ark” – with limited resources and expanding needs – in contrast to the 20th century economy as a vast unexplored “game reserve” of almost unlimited resource and space. Whilst I agree with the conceptual framing, this interpretation of the global economy requires an analytical approach to its implications and a restructuring or reorganisation (or at the very least, reassessment) of the various competing theories of economic growth. In particular, the ark analogy at first glance appears best suited to an – apparently outdated – Neoclassical model of growth. Whilst I recognise it is a simple allegory designed to crystallise the author’s point, I would love to see some more rigorous analysis of an analytical theory of “smart growth” within the bounded environment of such an “ark”.

The second concerns a cost-benefit analysis of constructive capital spending at different stages of a company’s lifecycle. The reason this arises as an issue is that most corporate examples presented in the book are of multinationals with strong financial positions and a very low cost of capital as a result. In contrast, young companies – and particularly startups – have a very high cost of capital. And many of the constructive capital concepts suggested significantly raise the marginal cost of both supply and distribution (and the cycles thereof) and therefore lower the conventional “dumb” competitive advantage of the new, innovative impostor whilst increasing the constructive advantage. A very difficult question to answer I am sure, but is the constructive advantage per dollar spent really greater than the competitive advantage per dollar spent when companies are very young, as well as very old? Are there ways we can measure or justify this, and does it change over the life-time of a company?

The third concerns us all, and is an extremely simple question. Dumb growth is driven by the dumb consumer. Smarter growth appears to require a smarter customer, or user. Is it possible that the “dumb consumer, dumb growth” world is simply a co-operative stable state of the repetitive global game of life, that will perpetuate until an entire generation walks into the abyss of addictive consumption? The derailing of stable behavioural states historically requires social disintegration. Is this now an inevitable outcome of the failure of 20th century macroeconomics? Or is there hope of applying the brakes before it is too late?

Summary

You must read this book. Then you must go out there and build upon it, rewrite it, or exemplify it. We need companies to fill the 10th anniversary edition. Not one of them exists today, and there is no better chance than today to create one.