Rise of the Regions
A Big Idea for 2019
“What are your predictions for 2019?” That question in an email by LinkedIn caught me a bit off guard. I would normally entertain you with a long-winded monologue on how VR, AR and XR are going to change/better/innovate the world/our experiences/reality — but that would really be my boring pitch meant to drive sales.
Nope, I’d rather give you some thoughts on the things that are on my mind whenever I have some downtime. Things that move me more (Sorry Boss!) than cutting edge technology and innovating at the highest possible level with a crew of brilliant minds.
Let’s me tell you about why I believe that we will see a rise in entrepreneurship from “hinterland” regions and what factor might serve as a catalyst for that.
(Disclaimer: Ideas based on observations in a certain geographical locale — might not be valid for other parts of the world, but would love to hear about your observations!)
The Potential of the “Hinterland”
You might think that the best conditions for founding a business are available in the cities. And yes, you’re right. The cities have seen an influx of money, talent and innovation in the past decades and are abound with opportunities for business, networking and recruiting. Yet I’ve seen a slight shift to the “hinterland regions” of these large cities, at least here in Germany, more precisely the region left of the Rhine between the Dutch border and the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan area.
Here, organisations like next MG, the local municipal business development units as well as a legion of like-minded individuals have begun to deploy both the mindset and the means for creating a startup and founder-friendly ecosystem in an area that would normally hemorrhage founders to such locales as Cologne, Düsseldorf, Hamburg or Berlin — the more “traditional” founding hotspots. By providing co-working spaces, workshops, meetups and even their own little incubator, these organisations and individuals focus and harness the energy of founders locally, starting a community that will most certainly spark more local entrepreneurship. Given the lower rents and short commute from e.g. Mönchengladbach to such cities as Düsseldorf or Cologne and their markets, such smaller cities and “hinterland” regions will be the perfect hot-spots for founders bootstrapping their business and companies that are less location-fixated for their business.
Add in the rise of the New Work and Remote Work movements and the so-called “hinterland” will start playing a major role in the dynamics of entrepreneurship and more traditional business in the near future. We should never discount that — in a global digital economy — location has become secondary, if not tertiary, to one’s business success.
Education — Think Mobile Library meets Google Digital Garage
As mentioned above, talent and innovation have been wandering off to the cities for ages — both for education and employment. But just like our markets and business opportunities have grown ever more global, so has the chance to educate yourself on the skills, tools and mindsets needed for the Digital Industry. We all know that Google has been doing some pioneering work in this sector with the Digital Garage initiative, which has been providing free education and content — albeit a tad Google heavy, but who would blame them?
Digital Hubs in my area have been putting out this kind of opportunity to startups and founders as well, yet Google targets those folks undecided on founding or uncertain of their digital skill-set. Demographics that do not necessarily show up for hackathons or or other entrepreneurship-focussed events.
One major asset of Google’s Digital Garage is the workshops available locally in cities like Munich, Hamburg, Berlin and — as of lately — Cologne. These workshops with real-live trainers and coaches provide another level of knowledge — one based on experience and learning. That’s what the coaches deliver on top of the Google content — someone you can talk to and who might just provide you with that spark, which video content does not necessarily deliver.
Attending these workshops, I have met great people with great ideas and — funny enough — they all came from all over the country, not just the city the workshop was set in. And furthermore, besides individuals looking for an inspiration or the means and methods to realize their dreams, I also met a lot of employees from SMEs and “not that digital” businesses. Their mission: get a free education for the benefit of the company.
Now take this model of online and offline education: it opens up a ton of empowerment to people & smaller enterprises. It allows them to participate in the Digital World, create a website, sell online, grow to be a talent , grow to be a business and all that from where ever they are.
Now, think “Mobile Library Meets Google Digital Garage”.
Think about taking this kind of education and workshops into the “Hinterland”.
Think about empowering people, local businesses, their communities and their regions.
Taking this model of education into the regions, into the “hinterland”, will create even more potential. Add to that the opportunity of co-creation and co-working- also much needed for such a development — and you will, in my humble opinion, create opportunity for “Third-Tier Innovation” — innovation that is not created inside Academia, the Industry or the much-promoted Silicon Valley Garage — but which is innovation from minds previously untapped and voices previously unheard of.
Thanks for reading!
Daniel
Part II
