I gave a talk last week which was a bit of a mess. It was my first talk based on new material since 2007 if you consider I’ve been banging on about ubicomp, internet of things and smart product design since 2004. It’s not that I’m no longer interested in those topics, but the luxury of a slower pace at RIG (ie my own really as we don’t exactly report to each other) and some big thinking post Tinker make me look at things differently.
I was approached by my friend Nik, co-founder of fo.am to help them out with Lirec over a year ago now. At first, it was more or less just website redesign, getting them a Twitter feed and a Facebook group and the usual digital comms stuff. As the months ticked by, it became obvious that they needed someone to look at what they were doing and see if it would be interesting for “industry”. They are funded by the EU, specifically byFP7, a call that went out in 2007. The project started in 2008 and is ending around the time of the Olympics. Lirec is basically 10 different organisations across Europe trying to work out how to work together to bring the future of emotional robots to life. It’s absolutely fascinating and not only because of the work. I don’t say that in jest and I’ll do a proper blog post about what they are trying to do later. What fascinates me is a little more meta than that.
Projects as timebombs
I remember having a chat with Tom about the idea of running businesses that had a set lifespan. Well that’s pretty much what an EU-funded project is. There is an end. You can propose an extension but the chances of the same partners all being part of that extension are low. So you treat it like a giant multi-national timebomb. There is one year and a bit to go on this one and people are already talking about what to do after, what project proposals to go for, etc. Considering I only ever looked 6 months in advance while running my business with the hope it would go on forever, this is strangely calming. A business as a project and a project as a business.
Soft geo-politics
The project includes academics from the fields of social science, ethology, software and hardware engineering as well as a private company. These people are from 6 different countries. These types of projects don’t just get money from the EU, they actually contribute to building an idea of what the EU is: a bunch of very different people who try to work together with a common goal. Just for that it’s worth it. When you work together you understand and respect each other.
All-seeing
The EU is incredibly strict about where the money goes and what is called a Project Officer oversees the project on a monthly basis. Every year a review is scheduled with selected reviewers from the field that the project addresses. During that review, that commitee gives advice, opinions, directions or can shut the project off if they feel it’s in danger. I suppose Steering Commitees are the corporate equivalent, but it doesn’t sound as paternal. I wish someone had cared about how I ran my business in that way. Having an infrastructure around you allows everyone to know where they stand and for the role of the founder to not be so isolating.
All in all it’s really interesting and I can’t wait to see how these guys do in the next year. There’s something to be learnt here that I’m sure will come in handy when I start my next company :)