Silicon Abbey Festival
I really felt at home at the Silicon Abbey Festival event on Friday (27/03/2015) in the offices of St Albans District Council. Silicon Abbey's vision for St Albans is to become a place where tech and digital companies thrive. I and my company, which among other notable local projects, first put St Albans on the web 20 years ago (yes, 1995 was the year when we started to work with the City and District Council on the first iteration of the first Council website) feel very excited about the Silicon Abbey initiative. There is much to do still in integrating the web and all that it has to offer in our social, business and personal lives. In some ways I think the early enthusiasm created by the potential of the web has been smothered by centuries old practices and concepts. For instance, the first Council website made a real effort to be integrated with the local community. It hosted an online forum moderated by a number of local individuals representing local organisations (I recall most of the contributors were from the USA...), it listed local businesses, charitable organisations and these were also able to have dedicated web pages. Nowadays, the concept of such an integrated source of local information seems anachronistic. There are now instead a plethora of local websites all independent of each others and vying for visibility.
Similarly, I find business owners reluctant to make a proper investment in the web, hence largely missing the opportunities it can offer. Many are content with a basic "online brochure" instead of making their website a strategic asset and enabling them to succeed.
Perhaps, the aim of an organisation like Silicon Abbey is to focus its resources in creating an environment capable of changing old habits among all the layers of our local community so as to enable to web to be a lot more integrated in our daily lives. As someone at the event on Friday suggested, it would seem to make sense to use marketing as a change enabler, rather than wait till technology can prove itself.
There is much to be gained for us all in helping Silicon Abbey to succeed!
I look forward to attending future events!