{"id":1145,"date":"2012-12-05T23:42:58","date_gmt":"2012-12-05T22:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=1145"},"modified":"2012-12-06T00:22:34","modified_gmt":"2012-12-05T23:22:34","slug":"beehives-business-incubators-and-business-colonies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=1145","title":{"rendered":"Beehives and Business Colonies"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I took part of the afternoon off yesterday to sort out a friend’s beehive. \u00a0He had started keeping bees earlier this year, having been given a new hive by his parents for his birthday. \u00a0After two inspections he called for help for me to take them away. \u00a0The bees had stung him so badly that he had dramatic side-effects. \u00a0Last weekend, I took a new hive over and yesterday I went to put the bees into my hive. \u00a0The bees were one of the most aggressive colonies I have ever opened – and it became clear that they were not the best colony for a beginner beekeeper to start with.<\/p>\n

It got me thinking of a few visits that I have recently done to business incubators and business colonies around the country in the past few months.<\/p>\n

The first was in London, near Kings Cross at the Centre for Creative Collaboration<\/a> (C4CC).\u00a0 My good friend, Brian Condon, has just started a new phase of development by taking on a full-time role running the place.\u00a0 The C4CC is based near Kings Cross and funded by various parts of the University of London.\u00a0 The way that the centre attracts projects and develops ideas is outstanding. \u00a0A particular success has been Pavegen<\/a> – which creates paving slabs that generate electricity from footsteps. \u00a0They started with the founder and a desk in C4CC two years ago and have\u00a0now moved out to a local office employing about 30 people.<\/p>\n

The second example was in Edinburgh, where I was shown around a new venture called “The Tech Cube<\/a>” .\u00a0 The building used to be the home of the The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies<\/a>\u00a0until last year when the School moved to new purpose-built facility 7 miles to the south.\u00a0 The vision for the Tech Cube was impressive – though the building was still under refurbishment.\u00a0 What was interesting was the link between the Tech Cube and the University – with the idea of taking some of the young ideas that will be incubated on the top three floors of the Appleton Tower (part of the Informatics Department) about half a mile away and then to commercialise them further in the Cube. \u00a0Again – a strong link between University and the commercial sector seems to be the trend.<\/p>\n

I was also lucky enough to be shown around O2’s new Business Academy in London – part of a network of accelerators owned by Telefonica under the brand name\u00a0 “Wayra<\/a>“.\u00a0 19 start-ups in London (from a total of 171 worldwide) are each given about \u00a340,000 as a loan by Telefonica to catapult them to the next level.\u00a0 They each spend 9 months in the accelerator in a cube on the edge of the building bounded by corner-less walls of black that can be written on by passers by.<\/p>\n

There is an interesting map emerging – which is summarised on the TechBritain<\/a> website:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All this got me thinking what the similarities were between my apiary and the successful custodianship of these new businesses accelerators \/ incubators around the country:<\/p>\n