Digital

People like talking about "digital", don't they? The "digital economy", "digital hubs", "digital this", and "digital that". And as someone who's in "digital", I guess that ought to be nice.

But it's a bit like when Tony Blair was on the radio saying how great entrepreneurs were - Aw, thanks, Tone - and how much the government provided support to them - Eh? What was that? - it's all a lot of talk that's intended to sound optimistic and positive without anyone actually having a clue what the measurable outcomes should be. 

So, yes, there are digital hubs, like Manchester, for example, because the BBC is there and its ridiculously-expensive-for-what-it-is web offering means there are lots of "digital jobs". But, for a contrasting example, the new digital hub in Chorley, Strawberry Fields: what exactly is going to pitch up there?

And the other, fundamental issue is where do the people come from to work in "digital". Sure there are lots of people who'd like to do game design or build phone apps using development toolkits but what about the actual developers?

In order to try and address this problem, at least as far as my company is concerned, I spent this morning at Lancaster University, to see whether we could find graduates who might like to work for us. It was, I'd say (cautiously), a good meeting, that might address our needs in the medium to long term but, well, I didn't get one to take away, this morning. 

Wanting a bit of time to ponder, I took the A6 back to the office, rather than the M6, and I pulled over next to the canal to take this photo of an artefact from a decidedly non-digital age.

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Reading: 'Lincoln In The Bordo'