North Yorkshire Rebrands to Silicon Dale
19 May 2015
Once upon a time, it was cities that dictated the pace of progress, pushing change and the evolution of society. Now this can no longer be taken for granted, and the countryside is biting back! Technological businesses today are just at home whether in a city loft or a converted barn in the middle of nowhere.
Urbanisation is not a new phenomenon. When the industrial and agricultural revolutions got underway, people started moving to industrial cities and larger towns in their droves. Smaller towns and rural locations simply couldn’t compete with the opportunities that the bigger cities had to offer, especially when you consider the snowball effect that you are likely to have when a rural brain drain is happening – that is to say when a skilled labour force has relocated to the city.
But in recent times a couple of factors have not only halted but reversed this cycle:
Connectivity is key, and now with superfast broadband and high speed methods of transport available throughout the UK and beyond, businesses are just as connected regardless of where they are located. Secondly, more and more people are working from home, or wherever they can connect to the net. So you can now bring your office to you, rather than having to relocate based on where the business HQ is situated. A third factor is the change in nature of many businesses. Knowledge-based industries such as programming or consultancy, can be done from an urban location just as well as from the heart of the city – there is no longer a dependency on being close to a source of raw materials, or living near to the production line.
So hooray! People now have a choice – whether they want to live in the heart of the city, or at the foot of the dales. Here in North Yorkshire, broadband has meant that technological companies such as OpenCRM have been able to move into the remotest of locations.
We have the best of both worlds, being tuned in locally and connected globally to what’s going on – I don’t know if there is (still) gold in them hills, but with the silicon embedded beneath our feet, we are glad to bring you high tech business in a rural environment, straight from the heart of silicon dale.
My role is to build our Customer Success team and I work with our clients and prospects helping them get the most from their subscription – it is a fun challenging role as no two days are the same. When not in the office I’ll be either making a noise on my guitar or getting my trainers on for a run out in the Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors or the Lake District.