Q&A: Microsoft UK head of innovation Jim Lawn

Microsoft UK's head of innovation, Jim Lawn, is heading up a strategy to keep Microsoft's finger on Blighty's entrepreneurial pulse.

Lawn's job role is to create and drive a strategy that ensures Microsoft not only plays its part as an innovator in the IT industry, but also oversees innovation at Microsoft's customer and partner companies.

Lawn recently co-judged an Oxbridge version of Dragon's Den that saw students pitching their business ideas and facing an eight-minute grilling from the panel.

silicon.com: There has been a lot of criticism that computing graduates are coming to the world of work without any real-life skills that can be used in IT roles – is this something you've noticed at Microsoft?
Lawn: If you look at computer science in university and tertiary education then the numbers are going down and that's one of the things we've linked with the story around globalisation and offshoring.

The reality is in terms of our skills gap – and we do have one and we do have a challenge here in the UK to address it – if it were not for the fact that we were offshoring then our software development industry would be in a much worse state.

That's because we use offshoring, and to an extent on-shoring, to better the economy and skills but also to fill the gap with skills shortages that we have at the moment in the UK.

I think the real issue - and one that we need to get better at measuring - is that while companies like Microsoft, Oracle and IBM do require the great skills that come out of computer science departments, the internet has moved much more into mainstream society.

If you look at the Oxford University entrepreneurial society around 40 per cent of their business ideas are IT- and software-related, yet they have representation from every single faculty within the university.

We're seeing a decline in computer science - which is an issue surrounding the perception of the industry – but it's not just about people who are in computer science. It is about how IT–savvy are people in other departments and how IT-savvy do they need to be able to have productive careers and innovate in the UK. I think we're seeing big growth here.

How important do you think it is to get people interested in doing IT-related subjects at university?
As a result of the dot-com crash there has been a decline in optimism in the UK since the early 00s and that means we've seen a decline in computer science enrolments.

It's cool to be geeky but it's also possible not to be geeky and be a computer scientist now.

A lot of entrepreneurs are competent geeks but also smart, young entrepreneurs and I think the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation in the UK is on the up.

We are gaining ground on the US, we're miles ahead of the rest of Europe and I think optimism for going into computer science is going to increase again and the brain drain is reversing.

Why do you think the UK is perceived to be behind the likes of Silicon Valley for innovative and new ideas?
The UK had some issues after the dot-com bust and we didn't have that spirit of celebrating failure that you get in Silicon Valley. I think we're getting better at it – so long as you recognise you're failing early and you know why you've failed then you're probably very valuable to move into the next start-up because of that experience.

I think that celebration of failure, as well as success, is getting better in the UK.

Also, if you look at 15-17 year olds they're natives of the internet – when they were born the internet and broadband existed but the rest of us are a bunch of foreigners who've been visiting the internet and are becoming fluent in the language but we'll never be natives.

That background knowledge that the internet is an easy place to operate [in], and the ease with which the tools and the social networking capabilities are there now, means you don't need buckets of funding to get going. You can just get going in your bedroom and come up with something that if it appeals to society then you can be successful from it.

You don't need that mass of really early stage funding around that you have in Silicon Valley because you can kick off and get going.

How do you see the UK catching up with innovators in the US?
A lot of the US venture capital (VC) firms are now setting up in London. The UK now represents a third of all venture capital investment in Europe – just the level of investment in London is greater than the whole of France or even Germany.

We've got really big VC investment – which in London was £485m in 2005 – and the US overall has about 10 times the amount of venture capital investment than the UK has but it's a pretty big country in comparison.

Silicon Valley kicked off as a massive government investment in the 1950s and 1960s so it has the heritage that means it was always going to be onto a head start. But it only has five times the amount of investment compared to just the Cambridge, London and Oxford area.

I've looked at that area – it's about the same size as Silicon Valley and I've coined it 'Silicon County' – and if you compare the Silicon County to the Silicon Valley you can make very good comparisons.

I'm working with some of the key entrepreneurs of the UK to pull together a sort of 'bi-national trade mission' where we will spend some more time in Silicon Valley to understand how we can do more of what they're doing. But they're also very keen to understand what we're up to because they see us growing faster than they are and that's why we're seeing the VCs coming over at the moment.

There's a lot to be optimistic about in terms of innovation on the internet and that applies to those who want go into delivering the services that will make this all possible – the computer scientists, the developers that will come and join the likes of Microsoft and also those that have other primary disciplines who are going to use the internet to make whatever it is they do successful.

What does the future hold for Microsoft's UK Innovation programme?
Our main aim is to be supportive of what goes on as opposed to driving programmes. What I do see as entirely possible is a pretty big competition with decent VC backing around the tune of £20m where we do something like Idea Idol.

How else do we pull the VC community, academia, innovators and entrepreneurs together into an arena where venture capitalists can get much better access to early ideas that have other experts like Microsoft working on it?

I see Microsoft working with a number of other players in the industry and with government and academia to run more competitions to drive better innovation and see the best innovations getting funding – that's where our main interest is externally.

The key point is about helping others innovate on our platform as opposed to driving our own innovation and I think there are real reasons why we can be optimistic about innovation in the UK.