Here's to the crazy ones
As part of our third birthday guest posts, we invited Imran Ali to share his thoughts on Old Broadcasting House's coworking space. Here goes...
Stephen Johnson's recently published Where Good Ideas Come From: A Natural History of Innovation chronicles the stories behind why particular places generate and share good ideas.
It's surprising how fragile, random and accidental innovation can be; invariably nurtured and pursued by committed, passionate and, yes,partially-crazy individuals rather than companies, nations and institutions.
The story of Old Broadcasting House is one such collection of coincidences...
Summer 2006; I'd initiated work on Orange Beta, a programme to wire together our R&D lab, Leeds' universities, technology investors, startups and industry giants.After hearing about San Francisco's Hat Factory, one of my goals was to establish a coworking space for Leeds' technologists.
Autumn 2006; I'd long been inspired by MIT Media Lab . During a regular scouting trip to Boston, we randomly encountered postgrad Ben Dalton ... who would shortly be moving to Leeds.
Spring 2007 I'd left Orange by this point to go indie and Ben invited me to a meeting on the use of opensource software in the public sector at the newly refurbished Old Broadcasting House. Here's where I met Linda Broughton, who wondered if I could share my ideas for Orange Beta and how they might be applied at Leeds Met
Winter 2007; After my longterm collaborator and friend Ian and I introduced Linda to the concept of coworking and BarCamp unconferences, we decided to roll the dice and use these movements to cohere and reboot Leeds' technology communities.
At every step, it was individuals that made the difference, people willing to risk their ideas, and their reputations to change something and to push others forward into the unknown.
My boss Norman may never have met Ben, I may have neglected to look Ben up after he moved to Leeds, we may never have had that coffee, maybe I'd never have been invited to meet Linda and maybe she thought this coworking malarkey was a little too crazy. Maybe I wouldn't have started OpenCoffee in June 2007 and Richard Garside would have never found the courage to go freelance...
But all those things did happen and it led to something profoundly important - that if we all took a small risk, we could create something crazy, cool, enduring and yes, a little magical :)
The New Old Broadcasting House...
Since 2007, Old Broadcasting House has become home to activists, designers, developers, entrepreneurs, Dragon's Den contestants, PR professionals, filmmakers and journalists. We've seen hundreds of events - including visits from the world's top technology investors, Twitter employees & design celebrities - all bootstrapped and created by Leeds people seeing that they don't need permission to just do it!
Old Broadcasting House has also been the springboard for countless companies, projects, collaborations and careers. We've never measured them or used them for hitting targets - but we indulged them, mentored and nurtured them; we loved them and created what Umair Haque calls Thick Value
We always worried someone would find us out...an adult would tell the kids to grow up...but we're still here after three years
and sure, the university looks good :)
Future/History...
However, we cannot take the "Old Broad" for granted; she is nothing without her children's succeses. We need a constant pipeline of innovators, risk-takers and agitators. The Old Broad is bootcamp for tomorrow's genius - can its kick-ass inventors, creatives and entrepreneurs create the next Twitter, reboot local government with pixels and code or be the first biohacking cowork? I'm not sure we're there yet, but I'm optimistic.
We're just at the start of the second era of Old Broadcasting House - the first ended when the BBC moved out, I suspect our future here will be longer-lasting and more profound than even the Beeb's. In 2025, Steven Johnson will be writing about Old Broadcasting House and its progeny :)
Which of you will make our future history?
Here's to the crazy ones . The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
Imran Ali November 2010