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Is Victoria too humble to rocket to the top of tech?

November 23, 2008 By 8 Comments

Believe it our not, Victoria’s number one industry is tech. Yes, tech…

In the week after Labor Day I chatted with a couple visiting from Baltimore. They were in Victoria for just one night, having planned their trip according to the boilerplate stuff peddled by our tourism industry (that Victoria is a “quaint” and “British” town). Now that they had arrived, however, they realized there was a lot more to see (but their vacation plans were already set: Whistler next, and then a wedding in Vancouver, with no way to book additional time in Victoria). I asked them what they thought the city’s number one industry was. “Fishing?” the man volunteered. Inwardly I wanted to scream, “Are you nuts?,” but I just said, “Nope, try again.” “Tourism?” she ventured. Wrong again. High tech, I said. That kind of staggered them (fortunately they were sitting down). But it’s true — tourism was eclipsed by high tech in 2006/07 (tourism revenue: $1.2b; high tech $1.8b).

link: » Will Victoria grow its start-up muscle? Yule Heibel’s Post Studio © 2003-2008

But if that’s true, then why is it so hard to have a start up there? Why is it so hard to get tech events together there?

Having lived there for a year and been in the neighborhood since 2000 I have two possible answers: scale and Vancouver.

Let’s look at scale first because it’s the most obvious. The tech community in Victoria is pretty small (compared to Vancouver that is) and given that for any social group a percentage of people never come to events and few can make it to all events, the potential pool of people to come to events is just smaller.

This doesn’t mean that DemoCampVictoria hasn’t been a success, it has, it’s just harder to get and maintain that critical mass to keep going.

Again scale can relate to funding, fewer people to tap into, even though UVic is right there with tons of young minds eager to be tapped into.

Together both of these lead and relate directory to the second, and more compelling reason, Vancouver.

Vancouver’s tech scene is huge, well-established, and tremendously social. The core groups (pods?) work together, relax together, and have fun together. I think I’d be hard pressed to not have at least one tech event that I could attend every week.

Vancouver gets the attention, it has the money, it has the draw. Victoria? It’s on a freaking island. Boulder might be a small city surrounded by reality, but Victoria is small city surrounded by ocean. To get to Victoria you can’t just hop in your car and drive over, as you can with Denver and Boulder, you have to take a float plane or ferry. Which ever choice you make, it’s time consuming and expensive.

It becomes tough, not to mention expensive to get to Victoria on a whim. I would have loved to be at the last DemoCampVictoria, but going would have meant about $100 in ferry fares plus finding a place to stay.

Couple this with the fact that a lot of Victoria companies don’t toot their own horn enough you have the “perfect storm” of reasons why Victoria isn’t getting the due it deserves.

Solutions? Well building a bridge has been talked about for years, but that’s about as popular as allowing smoking in hospital maternity wards. I think the only thing that can be done if for the Victoria tech community to really start making noise about itself and not mention Vancouver in the discussion.

Van who? Where is that? We live in Victoria…


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  • http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/yulelog/ Yule Heibel

    lol, how true, Tris, how true, how true…! When I moved back here in ’02, I seriously underestimated the “island” constraint, especially the “time x money” factor in getting off “the Rock,” and what that does to people in terms of making them hunker down, keep their heads down, stare at the ground. It is hard getting to and from Victoria unless you can throw money at the problem (i.e., fly via float plane), but throwing money around is getting harder to do all the time.

    It’s not just the tech sector that works with this constraint – it’s the arts, too. We have *so many* really excellent arts groups and individuals toiling away here, producing great work, but it’s very difficult for many of them to generate the appropriate audiences and ensure a lively back-and-forth with their colleagues in other cities. (I know this from sitting on the CRD’s Arts Advisory Council – you should see the excellent Project Grant and Operating Grant applications we adjudicate every year.)

    UVic hasn’t been nearly as helpful as it should, perhaps because it’s off in the suburbs, on an island (campus) of its own, an island on an island. UVic doesn’t advertise the events that happen on campus, and stuff that happens off-campus doesn’t interact synergistically with UVic. If the university (one of the universities – we have Royal Roads, too, and Camosun College) could get a real downtown campus, that would help. If we could get a decent downtown civic centre or new central library downtown (with space for events), that would help. If the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria could get a downtown venue, that would help.

    It all hangs together – or rather it doesn’t. We need bridges, alright, and I don’t even mean the fixed link one to the mainland, which we’ll never get anyway. We need bridges between ourselves – it’s to easy to internalize “island” here.

    Well, I’m working on it. But it’s hard, that’s for sure. Cynicism runs deep in Victoria, and as someone said when a big project went bottoms-up, “The cheering section for failure is huge in this town.” That just has to change, as far as I’m concerned.

    Yule Heibel´s last blog post..Will Victoria grow its start-up muscle?

  • http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/yulelog Yule Heibel

    lol, how true, Tris, how true, how true…! When I moved back here in ’02, I seriously underestimated the “island” constraint, especially the “time x money” factor in getting off “the Rock,” and what that does to people in terms of making them hunker down, keep their heads down, stare at the ground. It is hard getting to and from Victoria unless you can throw money at the problem (i.e., fly via float plane), but throwing money around is getting harder to do all the time.

    It’s not just the tech sector that works with this constraint – it’s the arts, too. We have *so many* really excellent arts groups and individuals toiling away here, producing great work, but it’s very difficult for many of them to generate the appropriate audiences and ensure a lively back-and-forth with their colleagues in other cities. (I know this from sitting on the CRD’s Arts Advisory Council – you should see the excellent Project Grant and Operating Grant applications we adjudicate every year.)

    UVic hasn’t been nearly as helpful as it should, perhaps because it’s off in the suburbs, on an island (campus) of its own, an island on an island. UVic doesn’t advertise the events that happen on campus, and stuff that happens off-campus doesn’t interact synergistically with UVic. If the university (one of the universities – we have Royal Roads, too, and Camosun College) could get a real downtown campus, that would help. If we could get a decent downtown civic centre or new central library downtown (with space for events), that would help. If the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria could get a downtown venue, that would help.

    It all hangs together – or rather it doesn’t. We need bridges, alright, and I don’t even mean the fixed link one to the mainland, which we’ll never get anyway. We need bridges between ourselves – it’s to easy to internalize “island” here.

    Well, I’m working on it. But it’s hard, that’s for sure. Cynicism runs deep in Victoria, and as someone said when a big project went bottoms-up, “The cheering section for failure is huge in this town.” That just has to change, as far as I’m concerned.

    Yule Heibel´s last blog post..Will Victoria grow its start-up muscle?

  • http://www.trishussey.com/ Tris Hussey

    Exactly. When I was on Pender and Salt Spring, it was even worse. Harder to get things done or even started up.

    The “oh you can just take a ferry over” doesn’t fly very well when 3 hrs of a journey is absorbed by ferry time.

    All the amazing talent in Victoria just doesn’t get what it needs to succeed. Mike Tan and his crew are over here because it’s just easier to do business here. I have to same as well.

    Much easier to make connections and take advantage of opportunities in Vancouver vs. Victoria

    Tris Hussey´s last blog post..Is Victoria too humble to rocket to the top of tech?

  • http://www.trishussey.com/ Tris Hussey

    Exactly. When I was on Pender and Salt Spring, it was even worse. Harder to get things done or even started up.

    The “oh you can just take a ferry over” doesn’t fly very well when 3 hrs of a journey is absorbed by ferry time.

    All the amazing talent in Victoria just doesn’t get what it needs to succeed. Mike Tan and his crew are over here because it’s just easier to do business here. I have to same as well.

    Much easier to make connections and take advantage of opportunities in Vancouver vs. Victoria

    Tris Hussey´s last blog post..Is Victoria too humble to rocket to the top of tech?

  • http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/yulelog/ Yule Heibel

    PS: just wanted to add that the information re. technology overtaking tourism in terms of revenue comes from the umbrella organization Viatec and was reported as well in the Times-Colonist (in ’07). See wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria,_British_Columbia), scroll down to “Economy.” I also have the specific reference to the newspaper article(s) as well as Viatec’s news releases on my blog somewhere, but don’t have time to look for them right now.

    On the other hand, someone told me on Saturday that the Business Examiner (one of those weekly free papers) claimed that tourism was in first place. However, one wonders who said it and if it’s hype …or if the reverse is! At any rate, much (all?) depends on how the numbers are crunched to determine revenue, I suppose – although tech is generally still doing well here (whereas tourism has been hurting for a while).

    Yule Heibel´s last blog post..Will Victoria grow its start-up muscle?

  • http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/yulelog Yule Heibel

    PS: just wanted to add that the information re. technology overtaking tourism in terms of revenue comes from the umbrella organization Viatec and was reported as well in the Times-Colonist (in ’07). See wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria,_British_Columbia), scroll down to “Economy.” I also have the specific reference to the newspaper article(s) as well as Viatec’s news releases on my blog somewhere, but don’t have time to look for them right now.

    On the other hand, someone told me on Saturday that the Business Examiner (one of those weekly free papers) claimed that tourism was in first place. However, one wonders who said it and if it’s hype …or if the reverse is! At any rate, much (all?) depends on how the numbers are crunched to determine revenue, I suppose – although tech is generally still doing well here (whereas tourism has been hurting for a while).

    Yule Heibel´s last blog post..Will Victoria grow its start-up muscle?

  • http://www.trishussey.com/ Tris Hussey

    Yes because people don’t need to take vacations, but work requires tech.

  • http://www.trishussey.com/ Tris Hussey

    Yes because people don’t need to take vacations, but work requires tech.

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