Where’s Nessa

This is my first blog entry from California.
It’s been just 3 days but the UKTI have kept us busy – really busy – really really busy.
We’ve started our week long mission in San Francisco, the heart of new technology, with its immense talent pool and VC culture. The place is booming. The industry and its banks are cash rich and it even has angels – real angels at that. Together with the banks they have given birth to 500,000 start ups in the bay area over the past 8 years. I’m wondering how the Royal Bank of Scotland figures would compare?

The buzz words are simply endless; serendipity, synergy, beta, net good, ultra violet, monetization and frothiness are just a few. The people are as intense as the language. Mostly ivy league and law school grads they populate the area and speculate on innovative ways to use new technologies in this fast evolving world. Id how they can best play a role in our lives and how to monetize those ideas once they’ve established their worth. Some made to keep and others made to flip.

The scenery is stunning, the food amazing, and yes business is healthy yet something keeps me from loving it here. In time I’ll figure it. Maybe when I’ve come away and had time to reflect… and breathe!
Right now however I have another meeting – 16 in 3 days. This is as close to a marathon as I’ve ever been. Its exhilarating and quite exhausting and I’ve not even reached the half way line yet.

Hoping tonight I sleep. My nemesis is jet lag and she will not be beaten.

Tomorrow we leave the new world of silicon valley to enter the old world of hollywood. Should prove an interesting shift – and I can’t say I wont be excited to be visiting some of the most prestigious and successful studios in the world, including that of Paramount Pictures. Better than Disneyland – with a possible celeb spot to boot.

Until later from the Hollywoodland.