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It's entirely possible for this area to be a tech hub. It's a chicken or the egg thing, it has to start somewhere and there's a lot this area has going for it. It's a desirable location to live, investment in the area is doing well, the local economy is becoming more diversified, there's a concentration of colleges in the area, population is growing, overall cost is relatively low, local politicians seem to support this kind of thing, there's already successful companies based her in this field, and there's a lot money being thrown around for a city this size. It may not replace Silicon Valley next year, but it can be a viable alternative given some time.
10 years ago we didn't make airplanes. Now we design, fabricate, assemble, and sell them.
The PR fueled chasing of the "Silicon Harbor" title smacks of me too me tooism and can read as a little pathetic.
i was embarassed the first time i heard it. it comes off a bit like a cargo cult.
I also wonder if the people who came up with that realize that silicon valley is named "silicon.." because they were an early manufacturer of silicon chips.
No offense, but you post screams of homerism. There are a ton of other cities withtthe same qualifications.
I don't think it is "homerism" to say that it is possible for Google fiber to come to Charleston.
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What exactly is this quality of local government you speak of? Not saying it's bad, just saying it's vague.
The PDF I linked to should give you more specifics about what Google expects.
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Originally Posted by imagineskyscrapers
I just don't buy that. As someone who was an executive, you plan on the next 5 years. Yes, things change, but you have your stuff together and if it was identifying sites, you'd have that 5-10 years ahead of time. A company like Google with shareholders would be absolutely asinine to do otherwise.
They can say what they want, but I think they're smarter than that. Next 50 cities are set, unless infrastructure changes.
google fiber cities are selected one-by-one, every few years. As the process goes along, they learn more about what to do 'next time', and what to look for in a city. The whole thing is a bit of an experiment.
They do not have some "list of 50" that are set in stone.
This is the one part of your post I must disagree with. The city and BAR would love to greatly improve infrastructure- putting utilities underground, improving drainage, increasing networking, etc. The simple truth is there is not adequate tax money to achieve that. Correcting drainage on the Crosstown took a lot of planning and grant money.
IMO this gets to the heart of the matter
willingness to increase property tax rates to improve infrastructure is one of the bigger conflicts in this whole google fiber issue.
It's entirely possible for this area to be a tech hub. It's a chicken or the egg thing, it has to start somewhere and there's a lot this area has going for it. It's a desirable location to live, investment in the area is doing well, the local economy is becoming more diversified, there's a concentration of colleges in the area, population is growing, overall cost is relatively low, local politicians seem to support this kind of thing, there's already successful companies based her in this field, and there's a lot money being thrown around for a city this size. It may not replace Silicon Valley next year, but it can be a viable alternative given some time.
10 years ago we didn't make airplanes. Now we design, fabricate, assemble, and sell them.
This has been my perspective. Admittedly from a non-techie perspective which might contain too much ignorance of what's needed, I see Charleston as a place people want to live... in fact it's top on a lot of peoples' list and that's a big factor in attracting talent these days. There's the medical community that dovetails with the (hoped for) tech community and while it's not the biggest research medical center in the world, it's respectable and garners plenty of attention. We have a decent industrial base that's gathering momentum and what better, cleaner economic driver to have than tourism?
The politicians seem to be on board (there's money to be made!) and IF the mechanics of fiber and any other infrastructure can be solved, I'm not convinced that the rest won't fall into place.
Now to add perspective, I don't think the coiners of "Silicon Harbor" have any expectations of Charleston becoming as big as Silicon Valley but a much smaller east coast version seems doable to me. (We're a much smaller metro area after all)
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Originally Posted by le roi
i was embarassed the first time i heard it. it comes off a bit like a cargo cult.
I also wonder if the people who came up with that realize that silicon valley is named "silicon.." because they were an early manufacturer of silicon chips.
LOL, did you think they were thinking implants? (spelling is not our forte)
I don't think it is "homerism" to say that it is possible for Google fiber to come to Charleston.
But it is homerism when people say "CHARLESTON WOULD BE PERFECT" when it's not, realistically. The thought of putting in a fiber network downtown would make me cringe as a project manager. It would probably have to go through the BAR knowing this city.
Think of homerism as someone saying "Charleston would be the perfect place for the next Super Bowl!"
Again, I'd be all about attempting to seek Google Fiber. I just think people are making the reality a bit more flexible than it is.
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Originally Posted by le roi
google fiber cities are selected one-by-one, every few years. As the process goes along, they learn more about what to do 'next time', and what to look for in a city. The whole thing is a bit of an experiment.
They do not have some "list of 50" that are set in stone.
This has as much credibility as my own statement. But according to you, they just pulled Chromecast out of their a** and only thought of it a month before.
i am just LOL at the absurd responses I got here. y'all can't be for real.
yes, Silicon Valley is named after breast implants. That is exactly what I thought. I didn't specifically mention its use in chip fabrication.
yes, choosing which cities to lay down a network of underground fiber is exactly like developing a bluetooth USB component. That is a perfect comparison that I definitely made here in this thread. Obviously Google manages every project the same way, regardless of what it is.
yes, I definitely said that Charleston is PERFECT for google fiber. Many, many times in this thread.
yes, I'm a huge Charleston homer, even though I've never lived in Charleston. This also makes sense.
yes, the PDF I posted from Google is exactly as credible as your imagination. We should definitely not consider the information Google provided about Google Fiber to be relevant to the deployment of Google Fiber, and we definitely shouldn't read it before we post.
I also wonder if the people who came up with that realize that silicon valley is named "silicon.." because they were an early manufacturer of silicon chips.
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Originally Posted by LocalHero
LOL, did you think they were thinking implants? (spelling is not our forte)
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Originally Posted by le roi
i am just LOL at the absurd responses I got here. y'all can't be for real.
yes, Silicon Valley is named after breast implants. That is exactly what I thought. I didn't specifically mention its use in chip fabrication.
Le roi, I think you might have lost the thread of this conversation... I read what you said clearly and questioned laughingly what you thought "the people" might have reasoned was the origin of the "Silicon Valley" name. (did you imagine they were thinking silicone vs silicon?)
It's really not important to this conversation, but I hate being misunderstood...
Benefitfocus is a sleeker ADP, CreateSpace is a publishing company essentially, Twitpic is dead, leaving a bunch of startups and PeopleMatter (where did their growth go off and die?), BlueAcorn, PhishLabs, and Blackbaud. Sparc was killed when it was picked up by Booz Allen and defense contracting isn't "silicon-esque" at all. "Silicon" is more of a culture, it doesn't matter where the term came from in its definition today.
Silicon Harbor was termed by the Charleston Chamber of Commerce, in an effort to attract technology companies, largely by Riley and his team working Blackbaud and Benefitfocus. It certainly wasn't termed that by companies because we have a lot of software companies here. I get where they are coming from; we should advertise for any business and "Harbor" was free (when was the last time you used "harbor" around here?). But if there is no university and research triangle, it's probably not going to happen. Google Fiber has nothing to do with that.
Speed of the connection isn't necessary to build a company. All other markets are doing fine without Fiber. To suggest it here, sounds modern hipster that wants to torrent all he wants at a quick pace like an a**. I'll be just fine without Fiber and startups will, too.
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(spelling is not our forte)
